
Class _J?£lk^^ 
Gopight]^" _. 



COPyRlGHT DEPOSIT. 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



BY 

CHARLES G. FALL 



BOSTON 
OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE 

27 Bromfield Street 



Copyright, 1913 
By Chables G. Fall 



Printed in the United States of America 



All rights reserved 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



'©C).A357467 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Sweet Annie Yulee 1 

The Song of the Mist 3 

The Birth of a Son 7 

The Hymn of the Huguenots 8 

The Soldier's Dream . 10 

Abraham Lincoln 17 

Trafalgar 18 

Diana 20 

May 21 

Winona: 

I Passion 22 

II Love 32 

III Hate 41 

The Story of a Life 50 

The Trip of the Oregon 55 

ViN DE VOUVRAY 57 

Genevieve 59 

The Miner's Burial 61 

Megersfontein 62 

A Lament for McKinley 64 

Colonial Days 65 

An Idyl of Mt. Desert 79 

Fame 83 

Magdalene's Letter 84 

Song of the Revolution. .86 

The Specter of Loches ' 88 

Death would not Wait 90 

Mother' Away 92 

Alc^us 94 

V 



CONTENTS 



Page 

A Retrospect 106 

Ripened Fruit 108 

The Indian Statue on Lake George 110 

Truth 112 

Love and Friendship 113 

The Fountain 114 

A Distant View op Mt. Desert 116 

A Threnody 118 

The Golden Day 121 

wollstonecraft 124 

At Anchor 135 

AuRi Sacra Fames .............. 136 

An Ascension Ode 137 

The Anvil and the Brook . 139 

Alfreda :..... 141 

Birthday Ode 142 

Mt. Desert 144 

Wedding Bells 146 

Nil Desperandum 147 

The Grave of Emerson 148 

Home and Country 149 

My Maimed Heifer . 151 

Miramar 152 

Opportunity 153 

ALCiEUS AND Saphia 154 

A Souvenir 156 

Patriot or Traitor: 

I Love 157 

II ' Consecration 165 

III Fidelity 171 

IV Martyrdom 178 



VI 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



SWEET ANNIE YULEE 



D 



JD ever you see 
Sweet Annie Yulee? 
See the rose on her cheek ? See the smile in her eye ? 
An eye like a fawn's, 't is so gentle, so shy ! 
Did ever you hear 
The fall of a tear? 
The step of the moon tripping over the sea ? 
Like this is the step of sweet Annie Yulee. 

Did ever you see 

The diligent bee 
In her feathery flight over meadow and field, 
When sipping the dews that the flowerets yield, 

Her wings silver-tipt. 

Her feet honey-dipt. 
Her motion as light as the breeze on the lea ? 
This magic she taught to sweet Annie Yulee. 

Did ever you hear, 

How soft to the ear ! 
The breeze as it whispers its love to the trees 
When the great heart of Nature with happiness heaves ? 

Hear the brook as it trills. 

Hear the voice of its rills. 
Now lonely and sad, now laughing and free ? 
Like this is the voice of sweet Annie Yulee. 

1 



SWEET ANNIE YULEE 



Did ever your eye 

In wonder descry 
Pale Piety shedding her benisons round 
On the poor, the oppressed, where'er they are found ; 

A star to the dreary, 

A staff to the weary, 
But a figure as frail as a palmetto tree ? 
This maid that you saw was sweet Annie Yulee. 

Did ever you feel. 

When the shadow-forms steal, 
And you sit, sit alone by a smouldering fire 
And list, in your musings, to Memory's choir, — 

Feel a hand on your face, 

Of the tenderest grace ? 
Feel a kiss on your forehead that quivers with glee ? 
This, this is the kiss of sweet Annie Yulee. 



THE SONG OF THE MIST 



THE SONG OF THE MIST 

SMILING and bright, 
With joy bedight, 
The sparkling brook bounds on its way 
And bears upon its flying spray 
The words the mountain echoes say, 
Happy and free, 
Laughing with glee. 

" Coming, sea, 

I 'm coming to thee ! 
The sighings of the spruce and pines. 
The gold that glitters in Earth's mines, 
Her gems, her wealth, her blood, her wines, 

Come in my arms 

And bring their charms." 

An answering strain 

Of low refrain, 
The Mist takes up her wondrous tale. 
Hear how her words our ears regale ! 
This song she sings with plaintive wail, 

Now fast, now slow, 

Now joy, now woe. 
3 



THE SONG OF THE MIST 



'^ I 'm coming home. 

I romp and roam ; 
I scale the cliff, I skirt the plain, 
I skim the moor, I kiss the grain, 
I bind the gorge with spectral chain. 

I creep, I fly, 

Now low, now high. 

" Sometimes a cloud, 

Sometimes a shroud ; 
I come in many a myriad shape, 
I drape the brook, the torrent drape, 
I wind the glen, the glade, with crape ; 

I veil the dale, 

I ride the gale. 

" I sometimes spring 

On eagle's wing. 
The daybreak lends me roseate charms ; 
The noondays purge my breath of harms ; 
The sunset lies within my arms 

And laughs and weeps 

And sighs and sleeps. 

" I 'm sometimes gay 

As a woodland fay ; 
Sometimes a ghost that haunts a cave ; 
Sometimes a sprite that rides a wave ; 
Sometimes the siren sailors brave ; 

I 'm sometimes dryad, 

Sometimes hyad. 
4 



THE SONG OF THE MIST 



" At times I stray 

O'er bog and bay ; 
I paint my face on castle walls ; 
I lend my robes to palace halls ; 
I hear the whirlwind when it calls 

And own its sway, 

Its nod obey. ^ 

" When puffed with pride, 

With giant stride 
I stalk across this grewsome sphere 
And with my plagues its face besmear ; 
I trundle thousands on my bier, 

And rage and howl 

And screech and growl. 

*' Ah, then my breath 

Is black with death ! 
'T is then the thunder leaves its nest, 
The lightning flames from out my breast, 
The hurricane begins its quest I 

'T is then my eyes 

Are lurid skies ! 

" That 's battle's day. 

Now watch the fray ! 
My sulphurous squadrons soar on high ; 
My thundering cohorts scour the sky ; 
Armies advance and armies fly, 

Satanic hosts 

Of fire-eyed ghosts ! 
5 



THE SONG OF THE MIST 



" And when the sun 

Its course has run, 
And battle's howling rage subsides, 
Mj pathways match the crimson tides 
On which some wrecked armada rides ; 

Dismantled ships 
, Lie in my lips. 

" To put to sleep 

This storm-swept deep, 
I steal with silent, serpent tread 
And soothe its billows, smooth its bed ; 
I lay my hand upon its head. 

And woo its face 

With loving grace. 

" This peace and calm 

Is Nature's balm. 
Of all delights my chiefest joy 
Is when the North Wind, wayward, coy, 
Lies, like some tired, fretful boy, 

Within my breast 

At rest, at rest." 



THE BIRTH OF A SON 



THE BIRTH OF A SON 

THOU fairy boy ! 
Thy plaintive cries 
Dispel thy mother's sighs, 
Kindle the fire 
On Love's eternal pyre. 

Thou tiny prince ! 

Why thinkest thou 

These vassals round thee bow ? 

Rule not, we pray, 

With sceptered tyrant's sway ! 

Thou baby sphinx ! 

What gorgeous dream 

Doth through thine eyelids gleam ? 

With bays entwine 

Thy mother's brow and mine. 



THE HYMN OF THE HUGUENOTS 



THE HYMN OF THE HUGUENOTS 

In March, 1560, many Huguenot nobles were put to death in the area 
between the chateau of Amboise and the river Loire, by order of 
Catherine de Medici for attempting to gain freedom to worship God. 
As Baron de Raunay, the first victim, ascended the scaffold, the chant 
of a hymn was begun by the other prisoners, and this chant was con- 
tinued, but in diminishing volume, until the last head had fallen. 

OLORD, our shepherd, saviour, sovereign king, 
Who Israel led through wastes of land and sea, 
Their cloud by day, their beacon light by night, 
Shield us beneath the shadow of thy wing ! 
We are thy children, longing to be free. 
Help us as now our spirits take their flight ! 
Oh, steel our hearts ! Oh, give us grace ! 
And, as Death strikes, show us, God, thy face ! 

Oh, tune our tongues to sing our trembling song 
With steadfast voice as Death each victim takes I 
Let, let that faith that stays the martyr's tread 
As we the scaffold mount keep our steps strong ! 
And when the gleaming axe the headsman shakes 
And each upon the block lays down his head, 
Thou, who had upon the cross no fear. 
To each, thy brother, then draw near, draw near ! 

8 



THE HYMN OF THE HUGUENOTS 

May visions of the streets of Paradise, 
Those golden pavements that the sainted tread, 
The saints and seraphs chanting thy sweet praise, 
In shining robes, illume our dying eyes ! 

Oh, may some guiding light their glories shed, 
Whene'er our souls their feeble pinions raise ! 
Dear Lord, from out the clouds reach down thy hand 
As our eyes close upon this fading land ! 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 

THIS is the ninth of April ! 
It is Appomattox day, 
The day that Lee surrendered. 
How the smoke has cleared away ! 

In a chamber — it is midnight — 
There is naught that frights the air 

But the panting of the dying 
And the footfall of fond care. 

Here the saviour of his country 

Is now face to face with Death, 
And that victor over victors 

Has his hand upon his breath. 

And in his feverish dreaming 
There unrolls before his sight 

A panoramic vision 

Of a life from dawn to night : 

A child of sunny summers 

Beside his mother's knee, 
A youth of earnest purpose 

His half shut eyelids see ; 
10 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



Anon, a dashing trooper 

Upon a grand parade, 
Anon, a charge of horsemen; 

Chepultepec they raid. 

And now a sun-burnt farmer, 

A vine-clad, prairie home; 
A wife and lusty children ! 

His footsteps never roam 

Except where boon companions, 
With pipes and foaming beer, 

Tell tales of wild adventure, 
Sing songs of hearty cheer. 

But hark ! the bugle calleth ! 

Its clarion wakes the farms ; 
'^ Your country is in danger ; 

To arms ! my sons ! To arms ! " 

The roads, they 're black with soldiers ; 

See the glistening bayonets gleam ; 
There are thousands, thousands hurrying 

As foams a mountain stream. 

And now the fever rages. 
He sees a battle-field. 
He hears the cannon echo. 

Battalions charge and yield. 

11 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



He sees the blue coats rally ; 

He sees the gray coats fall. 
God, the dead and dying, 

With night for their funeral pall ! 

And this ? The queen of rivers ! 

Against her shuddering shores 
Volcanic flames are belching 

And volleying thunder roars ; 

Hot shot and shell are crashing, 
And lurid smoke and flame 

Are from a fortress leaping, 
A fortress known to fame ! 

Again the picture changes, 

The Capitol is seen 
Where rolls the broad Potomac 

Mid banks of evergreen. 

This is not love, not kindness, 
Now sports in festal garb. 

'T is brother, armed 'gainst brother, 
Who spurs his fiery barb ! 

Brigades and guns and squadrons 

Are marching out of camp ; 
He hears their maddening music, 

He hears their sturdy tramp ; 
12 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



They 're hurrying through a wildwood, 
A nation's life their prize ; 

Their shibboleth is " Richmond," 
Hark ! Hear their battle-cries ! 

For days and days together, 

Advancing, halting, slain, 
They roll as rolls old ocean 

On, on and back again ; 

Till, rising higher, higher, 
Leaping, with loud roar. 

These surging, maddened billows 
Break o'er the crumbling shore. 

But this ? A planter's dwelling ; 

A torn and storm-swept vale ; 
Its sides are piled with breastworks. 

They 're rent with iron hail. 

These villages of canvas. 

These hosts in blue and gray ; 

What mean these halting legions ? 
And why this calm array ? 

Why mingle yonder chieftains ? 

Those leaders, full a score ? 
They 're the victors and the vanquished ! 

Thank God ! The war is o'er ! 
13 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



" This olive branch shall shield you ; 

The sun of peace shall shine; 
This flag," so says the victor, 

''It shall be yours and mine !" 

No lion tone and bearing. 

No eagle's eye of pride ; 
As modest as a schoolboy 

He even seeks to hide 

That pride, that joy of triumph 
By kindly voice and word ; 

He feeds the conquered army ; 
The beggar seems the lord. 

Soon the reveille has sounded ; 

It will never sound again. 
And now in martial splendor 

Three hundred thousand men. 

From Vicksburg and from Shiloh, 

Antietam and the sea, 
From Shenandoah's Valley, 

From Gettysburg's green lea, 

Those cannoneers of Ruin, 

That hurricane of horse. 
Who carried Death and Pestilence 

And Famine in their course, 
14 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



Those men, those boys, when Pickett 
Swept on them, wave on wave, 

That stood like granite ledges, 
The bravest of the brave, 

Now with drums and banners flying 

And triumph in each eye, 
In a grand review are marching ; 

He sees them tramping by 

As saw, that night, Napoleon, 

When lightnings rent heaven's arch, 

Before his dying eyelids 

His phantom phalanx march, 

Those lions of Marengo, 

Those tigers of the Nile, 
Those frozen, starving legions 

That could at famine smile ; 

That Guard that ne'er surrendered, 
Murat and Soult and Ney, 
Those hounds that hunted Blucher, 
But threw the world away. 

Ah, what a gory splendor 

Was that sun of Austerlitz ! 
'T is no such tawdry pageant 

Before our hero flits. 
15 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM 



It is no desert island, 
No cage upon the sea, 

That penned the patriot soldier 
Who set our nation free. 

He sank, beloved, among true hearts ; 

He 11 live in hearts unborn ; 
He saved a land from suicide 

That Faction's fangs had torn. 



16 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

HIS life repeats the old and oft-told story ; 
There is no royal road that leads to glory. 
In Fame's enchanted fane, its phantom walls, 
Its gorgeous, blazoned, hero-haunted halls 
That crown Parnassus' heights, there wander 
The Chian minstrel and great Alexander, 
Patrician Caesar and the swain Leander. 



17 



TRAFALGAR 



TRAFALGAR 

HOW Nelson chased phantoms across the wide sea ! 
How England, dear England, has fought to be free 
From the vultures, the harpies, that tempest of doom 
That threatened to make her green island a tomb ! 

Oh his hunger for fight! Under Collingwood's lead 
The fleet, every ship, bore down at full speed. 
So cavalry charge with the rage of the blast, 
A zephyr at first but a whirlwind at last. 

Now hear the shots whistle I Now hear the guns roar I 
Hark, hear the bay echo ! See, see the smoke soar ! 
From keelson to masthead, from bowsprit to stern, 
Every ship 's a volcano, see, some of them burn ! 

See how the ships tremble ! Hear how the shrouds moan ! 
And the men, how they struggle ! How they yell, how they 

groan ! 
From the Cape to the Pillars, from the bay to the light 
There is nothing but wreckage, and oh, what a sight ! 

But the dead and the dying, they cover the decks; 

And the sobs and the sighing, they weigh down the 

wrecks ; 
And the cries and the yells and the wails of despair 
And the shouts and hurrahs, why, they stifle the air. 

18 



TRAFALGAR 



But the saddest of sights was when the moon rose 
And they called the long roll at the hecatomb's close ; 
With a silence like death, except when a gun 
Told the living some captive its colors had run. 

Ah, but sadder than this, the sea-king is dead ! 
Dead, dead in the arms of the men that he led ! 
And that duty his banner bade others to do 
Did ever a sea-king more nobly pursue ? 

Now tenderly, tenderly guard thou, Sea, 
These martyrs that England entrusts unto thee : 
In thy caverns, thy glens, oh, find them a tomb 
And chant thou their fame till the trumpet of doom. 



19 



DIANA 



DIANA 

jUEEN of the sports ! Thou mistress of the bow ! 
Thou ruler of all who hurl the huntsman's dart ! 
Upon thy shrine this worshipper will throw 
A loyal love, a fond, a grateful heart. 

'T is you, fair Queen, that nerved my arm, 

Strengthened my stride that covers leagues with ease ; 
'T is you gave health ; it 's more than the houri's charm. 

Here, here I fall ! Behold me on my knees ! 
I kiss, I kiss your hand, your brow, your robe, 

Better, happier than if I owned the globe. 



20 



MAY 



MAY 

THE earth receives Apollo's kiss 
Upon her bosom fondly prest, 
Awakening her from sleep to bliss, 
From summer's slumber, winter's rest. 

'T is now the shy, the amorous dove 
With fond endearments greets his mate ; 

'T is now the maiden's eye of love 
Sees vistas of a holier state. 



21 



WINONA 



WINOITA 

THE SORROWS OF LOVE 

I. Passion 

COME! 
Hear the sad tale of Winona, 
Winona the child of the forest ; 
Born of the kiss of the Sun-God 
And loveliest daughter of Laughter. 
Tale of true love and its sorrows ! 
She dwelt in the Indian country, 
Land of the peaceful Algonquins ; 
She dwelt on the banks of our river 
Laving the feet of Wachusett 
And bearing its tears to the ocean ; 
Dwelt in that land of bright promise 
Where the fawn-footed sons of the wild wood 
Chase the red deer upon snowshoes 
And hunt the black bear and the bison ; 
There on the moors of the Mystic 
That Eric the Viking discovered 
Calling them New Norumbega. 

It is told in the sagas of Iceland, 
Legends of travels and voyages, 
22 



WINONA 



That he anchored his ship in our harbor 

Followed the course of our river 

And built on its borders a tower, 

Marking his footprints of empire. 

The Viking then turned his prow homeward, 

Back o'er that desert of waters, 

To the caverns and haunts of the Sea-Kings ; 

Told of the wonders of Vineland, 

This realm of the children of Ceres. 

Sagas preserve these adventures ; — 

So scholars, at least, have contended. 

Centuries slept their long slumber 
And silence was lord of the forest. 
Naught except Solitude's sighings. 
The neigh of the deer on the mountain, 
Cry of the hawk and the night-owl, 
The footfall of rain on the grassland ; 
Naught but the scream of the eagle. 
The moan of the murmuring hemlocks ; 
Naught but the voice of the waters, 
The hush of the pitiless prairie. 
Repinings, regrettings, lamentings 
And sobbings of untutored Nature 
Broke that long nightmare of silence. 
A continent buried in slumber ! — 
Save when the hand of some savage. 
While prowling this dense desolation 
Snatched the shy trout from his hiding 
Or hurtled his death-dealing missile. 

23 



WINONA 



Centuries slept their long slumber. 
The river flowed on as before. 
Forests bemoaned their seclusion. 
The river moaned on as of yore, — 
Moaned till its wailings were broken 
By the song of a new race of freemen, 
Men had deserted their hearthstones 
For freedom to worship their Master, 
Here in this land of fresh promise, 
This paradise called Norumbega ; 
Wresting the soil from the savage, 
And building new homes and new altars. 

Time, with the touch of true friendship. 

Laid its hand on the face of the woodland. 

Smoothing its wrinkles to furrows 

And building the church and the schoolhouse ; 

Feeding the manna of kindness 

To the savage till he was their neighbor. 

Chasing his deer on the mountain 

While they scattered their seeds on the lowland. 

Now, at the time of this story. 
The redman has buried his hatchet ; 
The gun of the paleface is silent 
And stands in the door of his dwelling. 
Now on the banks of the river 
The primitive lords of the forest, 
Tribe of the peaceful Algonquins, 
Are building them cabins and wdgwams. 

2* 



WINONA 



Now curls the smoke of tlieir chimneys, 
And floating on summery breezes 
Fades in the spills of the pine-trees, 
As moonlight will fade amid vapor. 
See the swift flash of their paddles, 
As, darting from leafy seclusions. 
Skiff's, with the speed of the widgeon. 
Cut the sheen of the crystalline water ! 



'T is the month of October, and 
All the woods are aglow. Now Nature, 
Shedding her maidenhood, donneth 
Her matronly vesture of crimson, 
Puts on the garment of woman. 
Look ! See the children at play, 
There in the arm of the river, 
Where the bend of the bank makes an elbow ; 
Running and shouting and jumping. 
Hew merry the peals of their laughter ! 
Muscles as tough as their bowstrings ; 
And flesh like the blush of the morning ; 
Footsteps as light as the zephyr 
That plays with their raven-like tresses. 
Boys at a target of antlers 
Are hurling their stone-pointed lances. 
Maidens are plaiting sweet rushes 
And with shoutings applauding the victors. 
Sports of our childhood are battles 
That win us the triumphs of manhood I 

25 



WINONA 



There, where the shore is the greenest 

The squaws are engrossed with their housework ; 

Venison dressing for supper, 

Or washing green vetch for the kettle ; 

Cutting fresh deer into slices, 

To dry in the sun for the winter. 

Winter ! You shrivel the savage 

With the blistering breath of the Ice-Fiend ! 

Famine is one of your children 

And Fever and pallid Consumption ! 



There, in that group by the hemlocks, 
A hunter is pointing his arrows ; 
One, on some smouldering ashes, 
Some sumac is boiling for dyeing ; 
One, near, is oiling a bear-skin 
And others are lounging and sleeping. 
There where the ripples are dancing 
To the step of their musical laughter ; 
There, where the cataract rages. 
By the brow of the cliff overhanging, 
Sits an Indian maiden. She 's plaiting ; 
And a figure is lying beside her. 
Softly her hand is caressing 
A fawn, with a fleece like a snowdrift. 
Playfully dancing and prancing 
Now this way he tugs and now that way. 
Tired, at last he falls prostrate 
Still scorning her tender caressings. 

26 



WINONA 



" Why wilt thou, Sweetheart, your mother," 
She says in her Indian language, 
" Tease with your fanciful antics ? 
You know that she loveth you dearly. 
Will you not sleep in her bosom ? 
Not stay with your Indian mother ? 
Know that the bow of Potalka, 
Potalka, the king of all hunters, 
Stilled the fond heart of your mother 
And crimsoned the sod with her life-blood. 
Why not, then, why not, I pray you. 
Stay here with your fostering mother ? 
Soft is her cheek as the greensward. 
And her breath 't is as sweet as the heather ! 
Hunter shall never, no never, 
With arrowy messenger summon 
You to the spit for his banquet. 

" Winona 's the child of a sachem. 

He has left her — a branch that is broken — 

And gone to those evergreen woodlands, 

Land of green fields and fresh pastures 

Where the fish in the rivers are golden ; » 

Land where the deer on the hillsides 

Eat the manna the sweet-scented south wind 

Brings in its hands from Elysium, — 

That realm of eternal delights. 

None but the son of a sachem 

Can stay the full tide of my purpose." 

27 



WINONA 



Said this, her glowing eye turning 

To the hunter who lay there beside her, — 

Shooting an arrow of lightning 

Could wound but could never be felt, 

Burn like the blast of a furnace 

When as still as the flame of the maple — 

Caressing the child of the whirlwind 

Till he sank into sleep on her bosom. 

Giving her love, like a woman, 

Unworthily oft, she was happy. 

Spake now the figure beside her ; 
He had lain there in jealous remonstrance. 
Spake then Potalka, the Panther : 
" I 'm the mightiest brave of the Mystics ! 
I, with my right hand, a bullock 
Have brought to his knees with a blow. 
I, as I 'd buckle a sapling. 
Have strangled a bear in my clutches ; 
Rowed, on the Father of Waters, 
My canoe thirty leagues ere the sunset ; 
Lassooed the mustang and bison 
Where the Snake Mountain shoulders the prairie ; 
I, with the step of the sunshine, 
Have tracked a big moose to Cohasset ; 
Chased the great elk upon snowshoes 
To the brink of the Great Spirit's whirlpool ; 
Scalped with the hand of the lightning 
A chief of the serpentine Pawnees ! 
Humph ! will you toy with that bauble ? 

28 



WINONA 



On that fawn will you lavish your kisses? 
You, with no smile for Potalka, 
Potalka, the elk of all redmen ? 

" Since the warm breath of Helion, 

The Sun-God and Father of Morning, 

Loosened the clutch of the Ice-Fiend 

From the fields and the face of our rivers ; 

Since, in the joy of their freedom. 

The brooks have sung good-by to winter, 

Cowslips have yellowed our meadows 

And told us our maize will be plenty. 

Here has the spear of Potalka 

And his arrow that rivals the sunbeam 

Lain at the feet of Winona. 

And here, too, the heart of Potalka 

Lies in the greensward beside them. 

" They beg that the queen-bee of maidens, 

Radiant daughter of Laughter, 

The swan of the maids of the Mystics, — - 

Tresses that rival the raven's. 

And eyes like the glow of the Dog Star, — 

Kneeling with me at our totem 

And craving the Great Spirit's blessing. 

Home, will go home to my wigwam, 

Be the light of my life and my fireside." 

These were the words of fotalka. 
He spoke them with terrible passion ; 
Kneeling in pitiful fervor, 

29 



WINONA 



So pitiful, painfully pitiful ; 
Eyes like a flame in their burning 
Disclosing the furnace that fed them. 
Spake he and waited his answer. 

Naught but the hoot of the night-owl, 

And the moan of the murmuring river ! 

Naught but a piteous stillness 

On the shore and the wilderness round it ! 

What is so still as that silence 

When Love holds its breath for its answer 

Nothing he heard but his heart-beat, 

And it beat like the heart of an engine. 

Long did Winona endeavor 
To smother the voices within her, 
Seeking to sugar her answer 
And cover the barb of her arrow. 
Long did she sit there reflecting, 
Selecting the words she should utter. 
Meanwhile a cloud swept above them ; 
It skirted the fringe of the tree-tops, 
Shrouded the face of the Night Queen, 
As sadness was shrouding her features. 

" Sad, ah, so sad is Winona ! " 
In stammering accents she whispered. 
" Grateful, yes, proud is Winona 
Potalka has donejier such honor, 
Wishing to bridle in harness 
A gazelle with the powerful panther ! " 

30 



WINONA 



Gathering breath as she listened 

To the sound of this voice from the darkness : 

'' Eagles, on cloud-skirting pinions, 

Love the peaks of the cloud-mantled mountains, 

Tempests, tornadoes, and cyclones, 

The crash of the volleying thunder. 

Love not the kiss of the moonlight 

Or the song of the thrush in the gloaming." 

Trembling she gathered up courage 
To speak of the longings within her : 
" Loving her freedom, Winona 
Would taste the delights of her freedom ; 
Something would see of the people. 
The paleface who dwells by the harbor ; 
Something would learn of their knowledge 
Of the arts of the loom and the shuttle." 

Speaking thus sweetly, Winona 

Had hoped she might smother the fever 

Burning so fiercely within him. 

She knew he was proud and revengeful. 

Feared to awaken the demon 

That lurked in the lair of his bosom, 

Ready to spring as a panther 

Will spring on a fawn if it thwarts him. 

Meanwhile the storm had grown fiercer, 
Impelled by the rage of the whirlwind ; 
Shaking the trees in its anger 
As if some Briarian giant 

31 



WINONA 



Grasped their great arms iu his clutches 

And twisted and cracked them and broke them. 

Furrows it plowed in the river ; 

And rode the wild waves as a stallion, 

Wildly careering, will fling off 

The foam from his flanks in his fury ; 

Scared off the birds to their eyries ; 

Drove off the women and children, 

Deer and their young to their covers. 

It frightened the half-frightened maiden, 

Frightened the blood from her visage 

Back to its home in her bosom ; 

Turned back her footsteps in terror 

To her home and the home of her brother. 

Home ? Not a home ! 'T was a shelter ! 

'T was a cote where a dove could find refuge I 

II. Love 

Softly the glimmers of moonlight, 
In shimmers and showers of splendor, 
Sifting through spills of the pine-trees, 
Are painting the floor of the forest 
With vanishing figures, mosaic, — 
The tessellar pavement of nature. 
Softly the song of the zephyr 
On that harp that is hung in the branches 
Falls on the ear of the Evening. 
Now Nature has lapsed into silence ; 

32 



WINONA 



Save when some bird of foreboding 
The peace of the stillness is breaking. 
Scarcely the play of the ripples 
Now ruffles the sheen on the water, 
Smooth as a mirror of crystal 
And reflecting the stars in their courses. 

Softly the river is sleeping, 

Profoundly its bosom is heaving, 

Swelling with deep inspirations. 

It is resting from recent emotions.] 

Midway in the circlet of silver 

The hillsides have framed in a picture, 

Rising in stately seclusion 

Like that boss on the shield of Achilles ; 

Tufted with trees on its summit 

Like the plume of some Indian warrior ; 

Seeming some spectral oasis 

In the desert of waters around it ; 

Dark with the frown of its shadows. 

There rises a lowering island. 

Clifis and the gloom of these shadows 

Make the bulk of the island appear 

Huge as Leviathan, sleeping 

On the untroubled breast of the ocean. 

Look ! With the speed of a sheldrake 
A boat glides out of the shadows. 
Darting long arrows behind it, — 
Its wake on the phosphorent water, — 

33 



WINONA 



Urged by the stroke of a paddle 

On its way to the Indian village. 

Soon it has shot o'er the river 

And its prow is against a big bowlder, 

Set like a bastion of granite 

To guard the approach to an inlet ; 

Nestling in the lap of the hillside. 

Hark ! There 's a voice ! It 's a greeting ! 

It comes from the shade of the bowlder 

Out of the edge of the thicket. 

The voice ? 'T is the voice of a woman, 

Greeting the ear of the boatman 

As a joyous and long- waited welcome 

Falls on the ear that returneth 

To its home again after a journey. 

Lovers, since love 'gan in Eden 

Have loved the lone haunts of the wood-dove, 

Shadows of rocks by the sea's side, 

And the hush of its musical voices ; 

Dales that the columbine courfceth, 

And vales where the sun falls asleep ; 

Hillsides with cheeks of green velvet 

And no ears that will list to their secrets. 

Naught was now heard but low whispers. 
Were they voices ? or the cooings of nestlings ? 
Or were they the chirpings of crickets ? 
Or the rustlings of leaves, as some squirrel 
Jumped from one bough to its fellow ? 
Or the lapping of waves ? or the ripples 

34 



WINONA 



Playing at tag on the river 

And drowning the voice of the forest ? 

Hearts of the children of nature 

And hearts of the children of culture 

Speak the same tongue of affection. 

It is so in all lands and all ages ! 

Heard where the Kennebec wanders, 

'T is as soft as the play of its laughter; 

Heard on the gay Guadalquiver 

Where the fan tells the maiden's soft answer; 

Heard on the many- voiced Danube ; 

In the land of the lily and lotus ; 

Heard on the swift Sacramento ; 

In the groves of the citron and olive ; 

Spoken by swains at Benares ; 

In harems by dark-eyed sultanas ; 

Love has one voice and one language, — 

'T is the language the heart ever speaketh ! 

Leaving his skiff in the thicket 
To dip to the dance of the moonbeams 
Lightly and lazily tripping 
On the wake of the waves' undulations. 
He, to that carpet of velvet 
That Fortune e'er spreadeth for lovers, 
Leadeth this child of the woodland ; 
Imprinting with chivalrous fervor 
A symbol of knightly affection. 

35 



WINONA 



the moments, ecstatic moments, 
Winged with the pinions of eagles 
But sweet as the dews of Hymettus 
Sipped by the bees from the roses ! 
the raptures, heaven-born raptures, 
Raptures the asphodel crown eth 
And crowneth with blessings immortal ! 
Worth a whole year of life's treadmill ! 

So few of our days' dreary doings 

Bear the cold frost of remembrance, 

Outlive forgetfulness' famine. 

Brides will their weddings remember ; 

So will mothers the births of their children ; 

So will the maiden forsaken 

Remember that bower of myrtle 

Bordered with rue and with pansies 

And her shame for the passion she kindled. 

These are our landmarks, our beacons 

That mark the full heights of our freshets, 

Depths of our shallows and sadness 

When the river of life has low soundings. 

Here, too, in New Norumbega 
This night of that Indian summer, 
Here in the shade of the bowlder. 
As deaf as the sphinx and as tongueless. 
Here, where no eye could espy them, 
Save the stars in their sentinel towers, 
Sat the Indian maiden, Winona, 

36 



WINONA 



In paradise, too, with her lover. 

List to the rhyme of their voices ! 

The song of the gold-throated linnet 

Scarcely can equal in sweetness 

The voice of these children of nature. 

'* Long, oh, so long was your coming I 

How oft has the oriole's bugle 

Ushered the pageant of morning. 

How oft has the drum of the partridge 

Thundered tattoos to the twilight ! 

How often the bay of the bloodhound 

Wakened the echoes at midnight 

Since your feet turned away from my wigwam, 

' Farewell ' choked the breath of the Eveniua: ! " 



•tj 



''My love, the long days you have counted 
Ages have seemed to me, ages ! 
Those days and those nights never ending 
Each was as long as October. 
I was sent to a neighboring province, 
Sent on an errand official 
By the Governor's orders in Council, 
Bearing relief from the famine, 
That wolf that was gnawing their vitals, 
Connecticut's river side stalking 
With his dewlap all dripping with gore. 
Only to-day, 't was at noonday. 
Did the sun mark the end of my journey, 
Home from my mission returning 
As an eagle returns to his nest. 

37 



WINONA 



" Dark are the days of the woodman ! 

He shoulders his axe and his rifle, 

Hews him a path through the forest 

And a hut for his wife and his children. ] 

Dawn hears the crack of his rifle 

And sunset the ring of his hatchet ; 

All the day long must it echo 

While his rifle lies ever beside him. 

Nights he must sleep with the tree tops 

Their requiem wailing around him, 

Heaven's great tent for his shelter. 

And the bay of his bloodhound his warning. 

Woe to the woodman if ever 

His vigilance slackens or sleepeth ! 

Death from the knife of the savage 

Is the goblin that sits by his camp fire ; 

Death from the hug of the grizzly 

The spectre that stands by his bedside. 

" Gladly I 'd leave, oh, so gladly, 
These valleys of death and adventure, 
Sail to my home, to dear England, 
That land of the rose and the hawthorn. 
Land of green fields and green pastures 
Where Peace is the dove on the house tops ; 
Land that is ever o'erflowing 
With milk and with wine and with honey. 
There, with my bride, my Winona, 
Whose forehead the Sun-God has christened. 
Daughter of Sunshine and Laughter, 

38 



WINONA 



Whose cheeks have been wooed by the South Wiud, 

Hived in an arbor of roses, 

I would drink the new wine of contentment." 

" Harold, there 's something that tells me," 

The timorous maid then made answer ; 

" Warns me this dream you have painted 

In colors you took from the rainbow, 

Ne'er will be bodied in being. 

I fear that the pride of your uncle, 

Ruling the Council in Boston, 

Will frown on your simple adventure ; 

' Never,' he '11 say, ' shall my nephew, 

A scion of William the Norman, 

Mingle that crystalline water 

With the scum of an Indian chieftain.' " 

" Know that the heart of my uncle,'* 
He says with a lover's persistence, 
" Holds in its holy of holies 
The fatherless son of his brother. 
Fear not so cruel a sequel ! 
It is only a womanly fancy ! " 

" This is my chiefest of reasons " ; 
She answers in gentle remonstrance. 
" This is the ghoul that still haunts me, 
And is pulling my heartstrings asunder. 
'T is that he holds you so dearly ! 
It is that you 're lord of the manor ! 

39 



WINONA 



No ! He will wish to betroth you 
To some rose of an ancestral culture, 
One of those long generations 
That castle the cliffs of Old England." 

" Let us not waken chimeras 

That vomit forth fiery fancies, 

Hundred-eyed doubts of the future ! " 

Responded the confident lover. 

" Look where the star of the morning 

Is skirting the purple horizon, 

Bidding me hie myself homeward ! 

Let us leave to the future these problems, 

Trusting the God of the Pilgrims 

Who lighted their feet o'er the ocean 

Us, who are weak, will direct." 

So saying, he leadeth the maiden 
Down to the shore of the inlet. 
Again does the dip of a paddle 
Startle the owl from its eyrie ! 
Again there 's a voice and a woman's ! 
Again does a skiff cut the pathway 
The moonlight has blazed on the water. 
So does an owl cut this pathway ; 
And both disappear at the bowlder. 



40 



WINONA 



III. Hate 

Silence was wakened from slumber 
By a yell as of demons from sheol. 
Then came another, another, 
Till the air was a maelstrom of warwhoops. 
Dozens seemed shrieking in chorus 
Until Morning stood still with afiright. 
Dawn that was gilding the river 
Grew pale at this horrible jargon. 
Shores that but lately were breathless 
Now quaked at these howls of discordance. 
Echoes were jangled in wrangle 
And Solitude stricken with palsy. 

Moments were days to Winona. 
They were days when the fever of living 
Burned like a forge double-heated 
And turned all her courage to cinders. 
Then as this babel of madness 
Took breath for a louder dissension. 
Heard she the splash of their paddles 
Draw nearer the lee of the bowlder, 
Nearer that blaze of the moonlight 
Where she last saw the form of her lover. 

Voices she now could distinguish. 
Potalka's she knew ; and her brother's 
Rang like a knell in the darkness. 
And another she heard. It was sweeter, 

41 



WINONA 



Dearer than life to Winona ! 

A voice not of fear but of weakness ; 

Tears in its tones of remonstrance, 

But not for himself, for another ; 

Tears overflowing with pity. 

But not for himself, for another ; 

Tears with no power of turning 

The savages' hearts from their purpose. 

Fainter this grew. It grew stifled. 

It was weighted with sighs of despair. 

Fainter it grew. He was choking. 

He was choking for her. He was dying. 

Close to her, save for the water 

That rolled like an ocean between them. 

Naught could she do for the dying. 

And naught could the dying one hear. 

But, as he sank in the river, 

A voice — oh, its agonized accents ! 

Accents so freighted with feeling ! — 

Poured forth his soul with her name. 

Silence then fell like a mantle ; 
So it comes in a weeping cathedral 
Whenever the voice of the organ 
Has ceased and we wait for the preacher's, 
Wait till the silence grows stifling. 
It smote e'en the heart of the savage. 
Death was among them ! Grim Monster ! 
He might drag them along at his cart-wheel ! 

42 



WINONA 



Gentleness never could linger 

For long in the breast of the red man. 

Butchery ! Murder and slaughter ! 

The tomahawk ! Death on the war-path ! 

Butchery, scalpings, and slaughter ! 

Someone to kill, to devour ; 

Someone to roast at the camp fire ; 

Another red notch in the gun-stock ! 

Triumph, its carnage, its war dance. 

Its yells and its demons and madness 

Stand to the fore in their yearnings, 

Their schemings, their dreamings, and doings. 

Shouts from the throats of these devils 

Now echoed across the still water, 

Shoutings of wild jubilation 

From throats that were frenzied with triumph. 

Triumph I Of Jealousy's breeding ! 

Conceived in the Womb of Revenge ! 

Bred in the sulphur of Hell ! 

Hell ? It is here. It is anywhere. 

It flames in the heart of the savage,"* 

Sleeps in the soul of the Christian ; 

Its fires are all of our kindling. 

Soon they were gone to the war dance. 
There, painted as demons with horns. 
Daubed with vermilion and ochre, 
Now shaking their spears and their hatchets, 

Knives that were dripping with gore, 

43 



WINONA 



And waving the scalp of their victim — 
Symbol of triumph and glory, 
Like an emblem of death at a wedding ! — 
Dancing and screeching and gorging, 
They herald the dawn with their orgies. 

Winona ? Winona, forsaken. 
Is cowering down by the river ; 
Anguish has stifled her breathing 
And agony smothered her heartbeats. 
She, too, has heard their rejoicing, 
Their dance on the grave of her lover, 
Seen, too, his skiff floating by her. 
His corse with his arm on the gunnel; 
Hiding and sighing and sobbing. 
No one has thought of her sorrow. 

Niobe's grief could dissolve 

In her tears. Winona's was tearless ; 

Such was her anguish the Furies, 

Aye, a gibbering ghost would shed tears ; 

Minos, that demon of hate, hold 

His breath ; even Hades would weep. 

Bearing her burden she turned 

To her wigwam, to face the reproaches. 

Scorn and contempt of her people. 

Their arrows will rain down in showers ; 

Down on her sorrow, so speechless. 

So patient, they will thunder their hatred 



WINONA 



Days without number, till dying 

Were pleasure. The Indian's bible 

Dooms to a torment eternal 

The suicide's soul. It must wander 

Ages unknown, over ice-fields 

Siberian, shelterless, homeless, 

Hungry, unclothed and unfriended. 

She patiently stooped to this burden, 

Speechlessly smothered her sorrow, 

Until scorn had forgotten its lashes 

Wounds would inflict, woundings that quiver 

Till their quiverings engender madness. 

Told in this Indian legend, 
Repeated since Time can remember, 
Loved for it3 poetic justice 
Is the tale of the river's devotion : 
When the mad feast had its ending 
The carcass was thrown to the fishes. 
Scarce had it sunk to the bottom 
Ere a monument rose from the water, 
Raised by the God of the River, 
The water-nymphs lending assistance. 

Years have been adding their tribute. 
No maiden of sorrows would pass it 
But she added some sign of her sorrow, 
Some token of sympathy's kindness. 
Growing by grievings and anguish, 
The cairn had soon covered the island, 

45 



WINONA 



Telling how many a maiden, 

Unhappy, brought hither her burden. 

Christians bear theirs to the Cross, 

And find sympathy, peace and contentment. 

Many another sad sister 

Of Clytie has brought to some altar 

Longings and bruises and heartaches ; 

Has brought to that altar where sleepeth, 

After her tempest of loving. 

That heart-broken maid Heloise, 

Clasped in the arms of her lover. 

Ah, Love has its crowns and its crosses ! 

Hearts of the children of nature 

And hearts of the children of culture 

Sing the same songs in their gladness, 

And shed the same tears in their sadness. 

Sip the same nectar of pleasure 

And drink the same nectar for sorrow. 

Woman is woman, and has been 

Since love was the soul of her being ; 

Woman is woman, and will be 

While love is the cause of her grieving. 

Life has delights which are fleeting 

As the footprints we stamp on the water, 

Life, too, has sorrows as lasting 

As the footprints we find in the placers. 

True-hearted maiden ! You tasted 
The nectar of love. It was wormwood ! 

46 



WINONA 



Naught of the rapture of loving 
Remained except kindness to others, 
All of the days that came after 
Your doings were charity's doings ; 
Friend of the sick and the needy ; 
And these they are always among us 
If but our eyesight be kindled 
By sympathy's quickening sunlight. 

Here, with these peaceful Algonquins, 
There were sadness and sickness and hunger, 
Mothers and maidens whose footsteps 
Were treading the paths of despair, 
Torn by its rocks and its brambles. 
And starving for love and for kindness. 

These were her daily companions ; 

And these, were it noonday or midnight. 

Lived in the light of her presence. 

In the warmth of her hand on their faces, 

Smoothing their wrinkles of worry 

And soothing their bruises and sorrows, 

Showing the pathway that leadeth 

To that land where the Great Spirit dwelleth. 

Often some hunter, when prowling 
The broad colonnades, where the pine trees. 
Stationed like towering sentries, 
Shook their huge spears as a warning, 
Heard a soft step in the gloaming 
On its way to some haunt of affliction. 

47 



WINONA 



Even the blast of the tempest 
Seemed to temper its rage to her coming, 
E'en did the beasts of the forest 
Stay the fierce pangs of their hunger. 
Maidens with heartaches she loved best, 
And she knew the best balm for their sorrows, 
Knew, when some lover's long absence 
Brought anguish, that lover was constant. 

Often her kind consolations 
Have brought, as the beak of the raven. 
Bread to those hungry for kindness 
And drink to those thirsting for love ; 
Come, as the stork has come often, 
To a house where a babe is expected. 

All of her thoughts were for others, 

But one hunger still gnawed like a famine, 

Tore as the wolf tears his victim ; 

No solace could soften these cravings. 

"Shall, shall I never hereafter, 

Shall I not in those far hunting fields, 

Realms of the purified spirits. 

Behold the dear face of my lover ? 

Hear that sweet voice, those sweet accents ? 

Hear him say I am never forgotten ? 

Say, too, his heart was mine only. 

And his vows had no shadow of seeming? " 

Such was her hope ever present ! 

It stood by her cot when she slumbered, 

48 



WINONA 



Walked by her side when she wandered ; 

It lighted the sufferer's candle, 

Shone on the face of the dying. 

It stood by the bier when Jehovah 

Steered through the shallows her pinnace 

To the calm of Eternity's sea. 

Death is a friend, is a brother, 

When the mind has been shattered or shipwrecked. 

Borne by those maids who had loved her. 
By the friends she had ever befriended, 
Borne on a skiff to the island, 
The altar where oft she had worshipped ; 
Maidens with heartaches, none others. 
All clad in pure white, were her bearers. 

Here by the side of her lover. 
On the isle that the River-God fashioned, 
Water-nymphs helped him in building. 
Here with the stars for her watchers, 
Here 'neath the cairn of the martyr. 
She waits till the martyrs are crowned. 



49 



THE STORY OF A LIFE 



THE STORY OF A LIFE 

WHILE lying half awake one summer's night, 
My chamber swimming in a sea of light, 

And silence floating on the ambient air ; 
No sound except the clock beside the stair, 

That ticked the tardy time with tiring dins ; 
My Fancy silken threads of revery spins. 

I see two lovers, on a summer eve, 
The doorway of an ivied cottage leave 

And wander through a shaded, woodland way. 
I hear the soft, low music of some lay 

That, lingering, seems to tremble with the breeze 
As will the zephyr play through waving trees. 

The youth has nature's grace, the wild deer's tread ; 
The branches seem to lift above his head 

As on he strides. His step and bearing say, 
" I know no thoughts that fear the light of day ; 

" The soul of freedom guides the condor's flight, 
The soul of freedom guides the sons of light." 

50 



THE STORY OF A LIFE 



The maid is gentle as was Leda's swan. 

She follows where he leads. Her face is wan 

As if she 'd watched beside some sick bedside 
With vigils frailty's child should ne'er have tried. 

But, now, to walk with him she loves, awhile. 
To watch his step, his mien, his eyes, his smile, 

To drink the nectar'd music of his voice 
And know that she is jewel of his choice, 

Queen of his thoughts by day and dreams by night 
'T is peace, 't is joy, the rapture of delight ! 

It lifts her heart above the gloom, the shade, 
That their dark mantle on the woods has laid ! 

Sweet Sympathy ! Thou art the soul of Love ! 
You make our heaven below, our heaven above. 

The panorama changes. Speeding on, 
It spreads before my eyes love's labor won. 

The lamps are glowing in some village church, 
The guests assembling. From their choir-perch 

The village doves, in robes of downy white 
And modesty, now dawn upon my sight. 

I hear them chant the legend of that knight 
Who, in the tourney, won his long-loved wight. 

And now the wedding march the organ speeds ; 
Now Cupid Psyche to the altar leads ; 

51 



THE STORY OF A LIFE 



Now, all unseen, at least, by earthly eyes, 
Their vows ascend on pinions to the skies. 

Again the vision changes. Now is seen 
A rustic cottage and an emerald green ; 

A stately matron stands within the door ; 
'T is she in youth's fresh bloom I saw of yore ! 

Around her feet are children at their play, 
Their ringlets dipt in sunset's golden ray, 

Their faces glowing with health's roseate fire; 
No labor frights them and no sport can tire. 

What 's this I see that 's lying in the shade ? 
What is this figure by the brookside laid ? 

I see tall trees beside a silver brook. 
Where some one lies as if he read a book ; 

A gray-haired man ; he seems to write in song 
The tale it tells him as it sings along. 

'T is he ! 'T is he ! But Thought has carved those lines 
That mark the toiler in her mystic mines ; 

Has bent that head that once was so erect, 
But stamped it with the seal of her elect. 

Yes, fancy's, boyhood's dream has been fulfilled 
And manhood wears the laurel youth had willed. 

The cup is drunk, is drained, the wine, the lees ; 
The pearl he sought, — is that the pearl he sees ? 

52 



THE STORY OF A LIFE 



Or are those youthful hopes mirage's sheen 
That leads the traveler to springs ne'er seen ? 

The curtain lifts. And now my half-shut sight 
Beholds the drama's ending — death and night ; 

Beholds a churchyard, sees a grassy mound 
Within a surging city's burial ground ; 

It sees a tablet^ sees a molderiug name 
Our country once had garlanded with fame, 

Had hailed with loud acclaim and wondering eye, 
While generations bowed as he passed by. 

Fame's temple now my waning dream displays ; 
'T is blazoned with the gleams of golden rays ; 

They gleam along its front, they gild its dome. 
This temple is the great immortal's home ; 

The home of soldiers, sages, poets, men 
Who ruled their land with tongue or pen ! 

Its walls are alabaster. Plaques of gold, 
Of ruby, sapphire, pearl, my eyes behold ; 

Its spires and pinnacles they touch the sky 
And fade to azure on my straining eye. 

I grope among its tablets for one name. 
Yes, here it is ! He has his lasting fame ! 

And yet I scarce can read it 'neath the dust ; 
It lies in solitude. 'T is black with rust. 

53 



THE STORY OF A LIFE 



But yet 't is his who made that sacrifice 

For fame, that fades like rainbows from the skies. 

Ah, did he know how soon the tear will dry, 
How soon the dove will spread his wings and fly, 

Then would the trumpet's blare, this noisy praise, 
Have had such power, to charm for such long days ? 

The grandeurs of old Rome ! How strange they seem ! 
That pageantry of Egypt ! Was 't a dream ? 

Their pride, their glories, — all have taken flight, 
And only Cheops hasroutlived the night. 



54 



THE TRIP OF THE OREGON 



THE TRIP OF THE OREGON 

HAVE you heard of the Oregon's marvelous flight, — 
How she girdled a world with a circle of light, 
While a continent gazed with surprise and delight, 
For Santiago bound ? 

Have you heard of the Captain who fathered the feat, 
Of the sailors who steered her in sunshine and sleet. 
Of the stokers who stoked her in a smothering heat. 
For Santiago bound ? 

'T was a glorious ship ! 'T was a glorious crew ! 
How the monster the surf from her hungry jaws threw ! 
How she laughed in its face when the hurricane blew ; 
For Santiago bound ! 

When she doubled the cape she expected a shell, 
And when abreast Rio — well, she '11 never tell. 
She was shoveling coal to send Spaniards to Hell, 
For Santiago bound. 

'^ Here they come ! Here they come ! Here they come," 

was the cry. 
"Give the engines full head! To the guns! Let her 

fly!'^ 

See her furnaces flame, hear her guns roar reply ; 
For Santiago bound ! 
55 



THE TRIP OF THE OREGON 

Who can stand, who can live, in this terrible gale 
Of hot shot and hot shell and this whirlwind of hail ? 
They are riddled like sieves ; they are sunk on the shale, 
From Santiago bound. 

War is death ! Yes, 't is hell ! See them jump for their 

lives I 
They have fathers and mothers, have sisters and wives ; 
But are smothered like rats, aye, like bees in their hives ; 
From Santiago bound. 



56 



VIN DE VOUVRAY 



VIN DE VOUVRAY 

MANY thanks to thee, Vintner of Vouvray, 
For the milk of the vine that we drank 
From the cellars that Charlemagne's vassals 
Had hewn in the bank ! 

In the days, long ago, they were quarries ; 

And these were the sentinel towers, 
These goblins whose battle-scarred visage 
O'er the river still lowers. 

How sweetly the bell of the convent — • 

'T is a decade of centuries old — 
Calls the nuns to their twilight devotions, 
The lambs to the fold ! 

" Will we drink ? " Yes, we will, and drink often, 

Drink flagons of wine to your toast : 
It was Rome and her torch that illumined 
Gaul's ignorant host. 

And we'll drink to the shade of the bishop 

Who brought them the gospel of love, 
And opened a window in heaven 
And called down the dove. 
57 



VIN DE VOUVRAY 



Here is life to thee, Vintage of Vouvray ! 

Here is peace to the fields where you grew 
You have wakened the ghosts of dead ages 
And clothed them anew. 



58 



GENEVIEVE 



GENEVIEVE 

TV} WAS here I saw my Genevieve, 
J- My pensive, blue-eyed Genevieve ! 
'T was just at sunset, as the day 
Was fading into eve. 

She came this path beside the sea, 

A smile was dancing on her face, 
She sang — how sweet the notes — some song ; 

No sylph could match her grace. 

'She sang, but scarcely knew she sang. 
That hymn at Christmas-tide we hear ; 

But scarce looked up and only said 
She thought no one was near. 

A spray of woodbine in her hand. 
Some daisies, too, and golden-rod ; 

There never was a fairer queen 
This beauteous earth e'er trod. 

The smile that danced about her face, 

'T was like the evanescent light 
The setting sun paints on a cloud 

Just as it fades from sight. 

59 



GENEVIEVE 



Her step ! 't was like the spirit ray 
Of Luna's footstep on the sea ! 

It told me that her heart overflowed 
With peace and health and glee. 

Oh, could I hope a thought of me, 

One thought, but lingered in her breast, 

That ghost that haunts my midnight hours 
Would go and give me rest. 

The peace, the joy, that thrilled my soul, 

Genevieve, my Genevieve, 
That night the fairy in my dreams 

Did orange blossoms weave. 

TiU then there was no magic spell 

Could drive the goblin from my breast 

Except the happy memories 
Of hours your smiles had blest. 

Till then my feet were like the snails ; 

Till then my lamp but dimly burned ; 
My cheek was wan, my eye, alas, 

From revery seldom turned. 

Away from thee life was not life, 
And none, not blind, could fail to see 

The love I tried to conquer so 
Was only conquering me. 



€0 



THE MINER'S BURIAL 



THE MINER'S BURIAL 

WE buried Big Bill in the canyon ; 
Asked the stars to watch over his grave ; 
Laid his pan and his shovel beside him ; 
Begged Christ the poor devil to save. 

We laid down his boots for his pillow ; 

We covered his face with his cloak ; 
Tossed up for his knife and six-shooter 

And the pipe he will never more smoke. 

We rolled to his head a big bowlder, 
And scrawled, but our fingers were sore, 

" He done his levelest, darndest. 
No angel could ever do more." 



61 



MEGERSFONTEIN 



MEGERSFONTEIN 

HAVE you heard the story, comrades, 
Of our Megersfontein fight ? 
How our regiment was ordered 

To be there by break of light ? 
How from dewy eve to midnight 

And from midnight unto day 
How we tramped and how we floundered, 
Lost our heads and lost our way ? 
But the Highlanders were hungry for the fray ! 

Oh, the stillness of that midnight ! 

Oh, that stillness worse than fear ! 
Oh, the stillness of our breathing 

Lest our tread some picket hear ! 
Just as day its eyelids opened, 

While we marched in serried rank, 
We descried a lantern swinging 

As a signal from the bank. 
Now the Highlanders were at the Burghers' flank ! 

Now the base-line of the kopje 

Was a living line of flame. 
And from thousands in those trenches 

Leaden hail in whirlwinds came. 
62 



MEGERSFONTEIN 



At that moment of confusion 

Rang out orders, strong and clear, 

Every soldier took his station, 
Held his breath but felt no fear. 
But some Highlanders, Death, thy call could hear ! 

All day long the battle rages, 

All day swings the scythe of death. 
Oft, how oft, our loyal laddies 

Stormed that hill with panting breath ! 
All day long the wounded lay there 

In that blazing southern sun 
With no hand their tongues to moisten 

Till the day was lost or won. 
Still the Highlanders made answer, gun for gun ! 

There is mourning in the Highlands 

Where those laddies loved to roam. 
Oh, the fainting, fainting heartaches ! 

Oh, the cheerless, cheerless home ! 
When the mother clasps her baby 

Closer, closer to her breast, 
What is this her pale lips whisper 

As she lays him in his nest ? 
May the Highlanders, Lord, dear Lord, be blest I 



63 



A LAMENT FOR McKINLEY 



A LAMENT FOR McKINLEY 

A TEMPEST has swept o'er the land, 
It has bent down the strong and the weak 
And the high and the low. 
A specter has lifted its hand : 

It has smitten our hearts till the springs 
Of our sorrow o'erflow. 

'T is the chief with the silvery voice 
Who has fed us with wisdom as sweet 
As the sweets of the bee. 
'T is the chieftain who twice was pur choice, 
But to-night a new light, a new star 
In the sky we shall see. 



64 



COLONIAL DAYS 



COLONIAL DAYS 

' ril IS twilight ! Night's imperial queen, 

J- High in the gorgeous empyrean seen, 
Is silvering o'er the river and the sea 
The hillside and the fragrant lea. 
The stars, those silent monitors above, 
Are glowing like the eyes of love. 
The firmament, that vast inverted shield 
Which gems bestud as daisies do a field, 
Gleams with a shimmering dust. 

The rain is over. The fitful gust 

That shook the opals from the leaves 

Has stayed its rage. Now ocean's bosom heaves 

And falls with breathings long and deep 

As if some wearied giant lay asleep. 

His breath ! It drifts along the tide 

As did some serpent o'er its surface glide ; 

It crawls along the valley, skirts the hill, 

It hugs the bridge, enfolds the mill, 

Earth's form with shining robe invests. 

Now Ocean's sister in sweet slumber rests. 
The toils of day are done. 
The kine, returning with the setting sun, 

65 



COLONIAL DAYS 



Have laid them down to sleep ; 
Beside them lie the white-flecked sheep ; 
Mute symbols of that loved content 
That Nature to her favorites has sent. 

The farmer, dragging home his leaden feet, 

His children run with greedy hands to greet. 

The lowing ox, the merry milkmaid's song 

She trilled in cadence as she tripped along, 

The twittering swallow, — these are heard no more. 

The cricket chirps beneath the door ; 

The owl, night's herald, pipes his wail 

While Twilight draws across the land her veil. 

Beside the road with flaming torches lined, — 
Those scarlet maples with the woodbine twined, — 
There, where four forest monarchs meet 
Beside that path long trod by busy feet, 
A gambrel meeting-house is seen. 
It stands within the templed green 
Upon whose carpet children play 
While dusk is lengthening out the day. 

The parson lives within a stride, 

His joy it is to guide 

His flock along the way 

That leads from death to endless day. 

'T is he who cheers the widow's lot, 

Reminds her God a sparrow ne'er forgot; 

He greets the beggar at the door. 

Divides with him a scanty store ; 

66 



COLONIAL DAYS 



He grasps the drunkard by the hand, 
Shows him where breakers sweep the strand ; 
He lifts the fallen, holds the proud in check 
With specters of the soul's eternal wreck. 

I see him now, his God-kissed face. 

His bending form, his gracious pace, 

His locks that float like snow adown the wind, 

His saintly smile that speaks his saintly mind. 

I hear his soul-inspiring word — 

So longed-for since but seldom heard ! — 

And feel the pressure of that hand 

That had no fellow in the land; 

I see the stealing tear-drop gleam 

When told that I must shatter home's bright dream 

And woo the genii of some other sphere 

Where Fortune opes her gates to brighter cheer. 

Farewell ! Beloved shade ! 

Long since Affection's hand has laid 

Thee with the fathers, and the friends loved best. 

Oh, well-earned rest ! 

They grasp your hand upon that shore 

Your shade shall haunt forevermore. 

Time, like yon river still shall flow ; 

Its mists shall dim the long ago. 

But never till its stream runs dry 

Shall your dear image leave my eye. 

Near by and shaded by an oak, 
Upon whose breast long centuries have broke, 

67 



COLONIAL DAYS 



Whose giant arms, extending high, 

The woodman and the whirlwind still defy, 

Beside a brook that bounds with breakneck haste 

To join the whirling river's waste, 

The village blacksmith swings his sledge. 

His is the hand that gives the scythe its edge, 

Builds the wagon, rims the wheel 

And bends the stubborn steel. 

With sleeves uprolled and chest laid bare, 
And clouds of curling hair, 
And gnarlfed arms and sturdy grace. 
His blazing forge reflected on his face, 
He is the counterpart of that grim god 
Who, under iEtna, War's wild chargers shod. 
Withal so gentle is he and so kind. 
The children, you will find, 
f With mouth wide open and wide open eye. 
Watching the lightning from his anvil fly. 
Or playing quoits with horseshoes on the floor, 
Or begging one to hang above some door. 

But what does manhood more admire 
Than where our daydreams first aspire 
And young Ambition first is taught 
To chase no longer butterflies by thought ? 
The schoolhouse ! Red ! It stands alone 
Beside the road with thistles sown. 
Here Learning dons its stole each year 
And winter's rage awakes no fear. 

68 



COLONIAL DAYS 



The master comes, so tall and thin, 

A stripling, with down upon his chin. 

At first a welcome word is said, 

And then the Testament in chorus read ; 

And then our Saviour's hallowed prayer 

Fills with frankincense all the air. 

Who sips such crystal springs at first 

For passion's pools will ne'er acquire a thirst. 

How school-day scenes return to sight : 

The athlete's leap, the athlete's might, 

His flying feet, the wrestler's skill. 

The boxer's iron hand and iron will ! 

Who does not love the well thrown quoit. 

The flashing oar, the Marathon exploit, 

Or smile to see the bully thrown. 

The coward scorned, the brave receive his own ? 

Has Age more wisdom than the schoolboy knew. 

That Honor's chaplets crown the true ? 

That worth holds sway 

Where true crusaders lead the way ? 

Where War's hoarse thunders roar. 

Its lightnings flash and bombshells soar ? 

Where Genius draws the living line 

That ages hence shall call the form divine ? 

Or clarion lips proclaim the word 

Our sons shall wish their sons had heard ? 

There, in the shadow of that hill 
Whose brow the moonlight kisses, stands the mill ; 

69 



COLONIAL DAYS 



And there the brawling stream, 

Tumbling in foaming cream, 

A maelstrom forms, 

Where paper boats are wrecked in paper storms. 

The dancing moon upon the spray 

Here figures many a silvery fay. 

The miller here from dawn to dark is found. 

His face is known the country round. 

The merry twinkle of his eye 

Bespeaks a heart that scorns a sigh. 

His jests, his stories, often told. 

Pass with the country folk for gold ; 

For when the farmers come to get their mail 

And hear the latest tale, 

They love to linger round his door. 

Here also is the village store, 
Where rustics babble of a statesman's lore ; 
And though the justice is the senate's chief 
The miller's wit oft brings the law to grief. 

There stands, some rods above the mill, — 
'T is where the roadway sweeps around the hill, — 
A dingy structure. Here the law's delay 
In solemn majesty holds sway. 
Within, a stove, some musty books, — 
Blind guides through mazes of strange crooks ! — 
A table, crazy chair. 
How moldy age perfumes the air ! 
The floor is worn by generations' tread ; 

70 



COLONIAL DAYS 



The cobwebs hang in festoons overhead. 

These walls, how oft they 've felt the jars 

Of shafts were aimed to hit the stars ! 

The schemes confided to their ears I 

If walls had tongues, who would not quake with fears ? 

The Justice, kindly, if severe. 

Has one lame leg and one deaf ear. 

His head is bowed beneath the books he knows, 

To him the widow, orphan, bring their woes ; 

A lonely man, he leads a lonely life, 

No mother, sister, child or wife, 

His true companions are the trees ; 

The friends who never prate are these ; 

But sorrow here will find a friend 

The ruddy drops of his warm heart will lend. 

Some say his heart is dry as dust ; 

Some say the toils of love he ne'er would trust. 

But others tell about a maid. 

Now lying 'neath the maples' shade. 

Who, once, when suns were bright and skies were blue 

And cheeks were red and hearts were true, 

Youth's bow of promise hung above, 

The merry student showered with love. 

Betimes on moonlit evenings they were seen 

Upon the river's silver sheen, 

Or strolling, hand in hand, along the shore 

Where all was solitude save ocean's roar. 



Some say caprice dissolved her vow ; 
Some say her spirit would not bow 

71 



COLONIAL DAYS 



Beneath the yoke of his strong will. 

Death broke the chain ! He loved her still ; 

And now that snows becloud his head, 

When all the world 's asleep, 't is said 

He and the stars will brave 

The night-wind's blast above her grave. 

The freezing hand of Time 

That chokes the current of the thyme 

And chains the torrent's force 

Will stay, ere long, our life blood's course. 

Within yon wall the churchyard lies. 

Who does not tread its paths with dreamy eyes ? 

The current of whose life has run so slow 

Some sunken rocks have not disturbed its flow ? 

We see the gateway open wide ; 
The villagers, we see them stand aside ; 
We see the clergyman appear ; 
The bearers with the consecrated bier 
Has brought so many a tired traveler here. 
Alas, familiar scene ! 

We see the long procession climb the green, 
The melancholy shadows pass along, 
The black-robed ghosts ; the feeble and the strong ; 
The mother in her weeds ; — 
Oh, how her heart with anguish bleeds ! — 
And how she stretches out her hungry hands 
For those lost cherubs, flown to spirit-lands ! 
And now this idol 's dashed to earth ; 

7^ 



COLONIAL DAYS 



And yet another gem of priceless worth 

She knows is sparkling in her Saviour's crown ! — 

The father; — hopes like blossoms trodden down ; 

Across his thorny path the blast, 

So many a wreck on many a shore has cast, 

Has swept, and left him like some lonely oak. 

Shorn of its leaves, its branches at one stroke ; — 

A crown, a galaxy of children, this. 

This is the noonday of all bliss. 

It is the mountain-top of happiness ; 

But the hungry heart of childlessness ! — 

Here are the college friends his falchion's might 

Have known yet loved him for his love of right ; 

Ah, well, how well their tongues can sing 

Of those choice hours when friendship's spring 

Gushed forth Pierian nectar ; yes, they know well 

Of hours too sacred for the tongue to tell. 

When hand in hand and heart to heart the friend 

That sacred thrill along the sacred cord can send ; 

These, these have seen the Achilles bow unbent 

That steel-shod arrows through Wrong's shield has sent; 

While yet the primrose blossoms in the wild. 

And in their midst there walks a little child ; 

'T is she who laid those pansies on his shroud ; 

She knows that heart was never cold or proud ; 

She knows how quick at pain the tear would flow ; 

She knows how quick at wrong the fire would glow. 

The cortege moves with solemn tread. 
With bare and bended head 

73 



COLONIAL DAYS 



We stand beside the yawning tomb ; — 

What echo yet has crossed that gulf of gloom ? — 

The bier set down, the service said, 

We shower our last, last kisses on his head. 

The chains thou forgest, Death, with spirit hands 

Thy chains are true Cyclopean bands ! 

We leave him there alone, alone, alone, 
An Alp of promise 'neath one stone ! 
And turn our faces towards the night, 
Cimmerian night ! No gleam, no glow of light ; 
For now eternal winter whitens all the field 
Nor does Hope's spring a single sparkle yield. 

When limping Age descends the hill of life, 
Footsore, heartsore, aweary of all strife. 
Scarred like a Spartan, his last battle won, 
'T is Glory covers with her shield her son. 
Not so when some brave youth storms up the hill. 
With ne'er a thought that shower of shot can kill ! 
If some fell bolt shall flash from summer skies 
He falls unsung, and none shall close his eyes. 

There is another mound near by this green 
I oft have sat beside. My fancy's queen 
Is here enshrined. It is a lonely mound. 
But many a night upon this ground. 
Choking with sobs, I 've knelt. 
Such anguish only filial hearts have felt I 
Here lies the form I Ve loved to draw 
Until the face, the eyes, the soul I saw ; 

74 



COLONIAL DAYS 



An eye of love, a face of kiud command, 

A soul that swept the strings from sweet to grand. 

Ye everglades ! Ye dappled dells. 

Where now the dryad, now the hyad dwells ! 

Ye groves ! Ye stately colonnades 

Where singing pines their surging arches raise 

And nature's minstrels trill their hymns of praise. 

Ye were her early loves, her earliest home ; 

Here childhood with the wood-nymphs loved to roam. 

My Mother ! Would your child had known 

Your mind, your soul, your spirit, ere 't had flown ! 

Had felt your arms around him twine ; 

Had seen your face with love's true luster shine ; 

Had known your wealth of peace and sympathy, 

Your truth, your faith, your hope, your piety ; 

Had felt the glow, the fire of that soul 

That burned to have your son love Honor's goal ! 

When bent with care, when spent with toil. 
When books were nightmares, life a noisy broil, 
Oh, could I on your breast have laid my head I 
When stretched on disappointment's bed, 
With scorpions nesting in my hair. 
And none to soothe these fiends of care, 
could, could I have whispered in your ear 
The doubts, the fears it was attuned to hear ! 

Who loves not laughing brooks and dancing dells ? 
Who loves not sparkling draughts from moss-grown wells ? 

75 



COLONIAL DAYS 



Loves not the song of birds, the hum of bees ? 
The new-mown hay that scents the evening breeze ? 
What rural heart loves not a rural home ? 
Loves not at dusk through violet vales to roam ? 
When Autumn paints the leaves with rainbow-rays 
The cattle round the farmer's door-step graze, 
The reapers bind in sheaves the golden grain, 
Big oxen homeward tug the creaking wain, 
What eye but dances at the sight ? 

What maiden's heart but bounds with wild delight 

When harvest moons distil their crystal gleams, 

The lanterns deck the dusky beams, 

The barn is piled with rich, ripe corn 

Kind Nature empties from her horn ? 

What shouts, what wild hurrahs we hear 

When Ruth unhusks the speckled ear 

And swains demand the forfeit due ! 

The sun that browns their faces warms their hearts. 

The breeze that steels their sinews knows no arts. 

As free as air, as happy as the roe. 
They eat the bread a frugal hand can sow, 
No cares, no debts, some honey in the hive. 
A country life 's the happiest life to live ! 

'T is now the bearded grain 
Is threshed and piled upon the wain ; 
'T is now unto the mill 't is drawn 
And ground to flour or changed for corn. 
'T is now we see the bursting barn, 

76 



COLONIAL DAYS 



The housewife spinning stocking-yarn, 
The apples groaning in the press, 
The shuttle weaving winter's dress. 
'T is now the leaves, in eddying waves. 
Seek in some sheltered nook their graves. 

And now, 't is of all scenes the best I — 
The husbandman, his toil well blest, 
Around the board his thanks returns 
For bounties his hard labor earns. 

Who has not seen the farmer's home ? — 
It has no equal 'neath earth's dome ! — 
His honest heart, his buxom wife. 
His children bubbling o'er with life ? 
When Winter scars the face of earth 
No goblins dance around his hearth ; 
For Fortune her best gifts bequeathes 
And binds his brow with her best wreaths. 

Where, where 's a scene of such delight 
As greets the eye some Autumn night. 
When day is done, the cattle fed. 
And, ere they take themselves to bed, 
The father, mother, all enjoy 
An hour of rest, without alloy ? 
Before the hearth the settle stands ; 
The eldest reads some tale of foreign lands ; 
The embers dance, the taper burns. 

The mother's hand the flax-wheel turns. 

77 



COLONIAL DAYS 



The clock strikes ten. 'T is time for bed, 

The father takes The Book has led 

His feet for years. All else is laid aside, 

And reads that psalm that chokes all pride : 

The Lord my shepherd is. His will 

Leads me through pastures green, by waters still. 

I walk through Death's dark door, but fear no harm. 

Thou art my rock, my staff, my trusty arm. 

Then kneeling all around 

That shrine in pious households found. 

The father begs with reverent zeal 

For health, for pardon for each sin, 

The dews of heaven on their kin. 

These homes ! They made our fathers strong. 

'T is these that steeled their hearts 'gainst wrong. 

'T was Faith that freedom's banner bore. 

When Faith is gone strength is no more. 

'T was Faith that set this nation free ; 

It steered the Pilgrims o'er the sea ; 

This shibboleth inspired our brave 

To face with heart a traitor's grave ; 

It made our Cincinnatus great ; 

It held the hand that held the helm of state. 

When faith in God is spurned with scorn 
Brave sons and true no longer born. 
Simplicity wears mourning shrouds, 
And Greed stalks through admiring crowds ; 
Then Honor fails and high endeavor. 
Then sinks our country's sun, aye, sinks forever. 

78 



AN IDYL OF MT. DESERT 



AN IDYL OF MT. DESERT 

BOLD crags, bald mountains greet the eye, 
Deep bays, tall cliffs that hug the seas, 
Dark glens that circle desert wastes 
With sentry lines of trees, 

Long palisades where ocean's voice 
Through caves and fluted caverns play ; 

Green inlets where the fisher's boat 
Floats drowsily all day. 

A stillness sits upon the shore 

Like mist. No sound except the sea 

That murmurs some low madrigal 
And sets the fancy free. 

There was no shelter save one hut ; 

No beacon save one look-out light 
Stood guard against the tempest's rage 

And broke the gloom of night, 

When one bold yachtsman, sailing by, 
Descried the grandeur of this isle 

And, like Columbus, kissed the soil 
And lingered here a while. 
79 



AN IDYL OF MT. DESERT 



Another year he came again 

And built an eyrie on the shore, 
And other birds of passage lured 

These wonders to explore. 

They rambled round the cliffs and coast, 
They found a path, a woodman's road, 

That scrambled up the mountain-side 
And brought back such a load 

Of jewels Nature loves the best; 

They chased the hare and stalked the deer ; 
The trout that ne'er had seen man's face 

His shadow learned to fear. 

Nature, fair nature, here was throned, — 

As Eve, our mother, was in Eden, 
A headland for her queenly seat | 

But not one courtier even 

Now kneels before her royal feet, 
Or lisps her homage in sweet plH'ase, 

Or tries with rustic courtesy 
Her woodland grace to praise. 

The change ! The change ! The saddening change 
Those first who came vaunted their bliss ; 

Then others, touched by passion's wand, — 
These longed the queen to kiss. 
80 



AN IDYL OF MT. DESERT 



No more, alas, the glades resound 
With nature's minstrelsy ! Ah, long, 

Ah, long ago they left this home, 
Singing their farewell song. 

Now villas, gardens, line the coast 
And guard like sentinels the bay ; 

Those glens that loved the eagle's cry 
Now ring with laughter gay I 

That great god Pan whom once we loved 
And wooed and wooed from morn till e'en 

Has now no courtiers round his shrine ; 
Euphrosyne is Queen ! 

Now Mirth and Gayety and Fun 

Have chased those woodland nymphs away. 
And Comus with his merry crew 

Turns darkness into day ! 

Yes, when the ghosts of night appear, 
Song, also, leaves her hiding place 

And drives them back and scares the nymphs 
We loved with tender grace. 

And Puck, the fairy, too, appears, 
That roistering reveller of the night, 

And Bacchus brings his brimming cup 
And bids our hearts be light ; 

81 



AN IDYL OF MT. DESERT 



And one, — beware his roguisli eye 
And radiant face ! that jolly elf 

Whose smile bewitches every one, 
Sweet Cupid's charming self. 

But let the fun and mirth roll on ! 

Let song and dance have their full sway ! 
Come Truth and Beauty, hand in hand ; 

Let Love direct your way. 

We who were caught by your sweet wile 
Have fond remembrance of this isle 

Whose seas and glens alike beguile, 
Whose mountains wear a smile. 

'T was here I saw my Genevieve, 
My Love, my Queen, my Genevieve I 

'T was just as Dian 'gan to weave 
The silvery veil of eve. 

She seemed some spirit of the night 
Just lighting from some starry height, 

Entrancing my bewildered sight, 
A vision of delight. 



82 



FAME 



FAME 

HOW many swains she jilts, that jade, fair Fame ! 
And yet the poet bums his midnight oil, 
The soldier coins his blood to buy a name ; 

The patriot wades through pools of filth and moil, 
E'en he who lifts the fallen does this too ; 
Not one believes the centuries say true; — 
Shadows w« are and shadows we pursue. - 



83 



MAGDALENE'S LETTER 



MAGDALENE'S LETTER 

YOU ask me why I lead this life, 
This life so full of aching strife ; 
Why I am not a happy wife ; 
You wish to know my story. 

You ask why beauty such as mine 
Is stained and spoilt by men and wine 
When it might round some cottage twine, 
A trailing morning-glory ; 

You wonder why I never try 
To spare the luster of my eye, 
And why I often long to die 
And end this long carousal ; 

Why all this glitter has no charm, 
And why my cough gives no alarm. 
And what strange fortune came to harm 
A holier espousal. 

Some months ago my mother died ; 
'T was he who kissed my tears aside. 
And with his fond caresses tried 
To lighten sorrow's dolor. 

84 



MAGDALENE'S LETTER 



He said lie felt as sad as I ; 
And many a tear bedimmed his eye, 
And many, many a time he 'd try, 
Those ghosts of gloom to frighten. 

He made a rose-bed of her grave ; 
Oh, he was gentle, kind and brave I 
Why, when my grief rose like a wave, 
'T was he my load would lighten ! 

Now blame me, sir, if now you can. 
His kindness every wish outran ; 
Those long, long days he made a span. 
Must this life last forever ? 



85 



SONG OF THE REVOLUTION 



SONG OF THE REVOLUTION 

YM is midnight in Paris. Now the tocsin will speak, 

J- It will waken the demons of War with its wails, 
Revolution and Riot. Hear Anarchy shriek ! 

Hear the Reds of the Midi! They have marched from 
Marseilles, 
And are massed on the bridge, red hot with their wrongs. 

Refrain. 

^a, ira, (^a, ira ! vive le son, vive le son ! 

Dansez la Carmagnole ; vive le son du canon ! 

Down, down from your throne ! Down, Louis Capet ! 
Those stones in your house were cemented with blood. 
Tear, tear off that crown from your Austrian Queen ! 
Let her work, let her sweat, we will show her the way. 
The tumbrels are coming ! The guillotine's flood 
Will wash out the prints of your tyranny clean. 
This mob? And these torches? These guns? And these 

cheers ? 
They 're the death-dance of kings ! Make ready their biers ! 

Refrain. 
86 



SONG OF THE REVOLUTION 

See the Tuileries windows, they blaze with your guns ; 

For your minions are there, they will slay us like sheep. 
See the Swiss in that doorway ! Santerre leads the Guard ! 

We '11 not fail ; we '11 not falter ; for Freedom would weep 
And the hand on the dial of Time we 'd retard. 
Hear that gun ! That 's our signal ! Load full and aim 

well! 
Up, up with the Tricolor ! 'T is fleur-de-lis' knell. 

Refrain* 



87 



THE SPECTER OF LOCHES 



THE SPECTER OF LOCHES 

AWAKE, thou specter of Loclies ! Tell the tale 
Of the skeleton walled in your dungeon of stone ; 
Him clad in full mail, and with crossbov/ and spear, 
Who for ages had dwelt there unknown ; 

Till the warder one day the grim portal reopened 
And found the frail form of a man ; he was chained ; 

And his tissues at once fell away into ashes 
And his skeleton only remained. 

" 'T is the tale of a knight who was true to his knighthood. 

I was left o'er my suzerain's wife to keep ward 
While he went to the East with the hosts of the Prophet 

To rescue the tomb of our Lord. 

" I was true to my mission, was faithful, was valiaat. 

I guarded the donjon, I guarded the gate ; 
I suffered no stain to find place on my scutcheon ; 

So Fame upon Honor shall wait. 

" Ah, sad, doubly sad is it, calumny ever 
Should seek for its arrow a glittering mark ; 

Ah, sad that the fires of jealousy kindle 
From a slur as a flame from a spark ! 

88 



THE SPECTER OF LOCHES 



'* When his pilgrimage ended the lord of the castle 
Returned to his home, with the hate of a hound ; 

He buried his vassal alive in this dungeon, 
Down, down, far under the ground." 

The true-hearted, sometimes, have had for their guerdon 
In their lives an injustice too awful for tears. 

But honor at death that was lasting as language, 
And hundreds to weep at their biers. 



88 



DEATH WOULD NOT WAIT 



DEATH WOULD NOT WAIT 

" y WAITED as long as I could ; 

JL Ah, but death would not wait ! 
And the wings of the wind were too slow 
To bring my dear Love to my side. 
When that specter first knocked at my door 
I begged the stern king for one hour ; 
He granted my quest. But my Love did not come. 
I begged for one more ; 
And the glutton, too, granted me this. 
That pittance soon past, but my Love was not here ! 
Another I begged. 
But he knocked at my door 
Till his knuckle-bones rang. 
I begged for a half. 
But his knockings still thundered 
And pounded my door ; 
For ten, for five minutes, I begged ; 
His knockings have ceased ; 
And I pray to the winds to be fleet 
And the seas to be calm 
And bring me my Love ere I die. 
Oh, bring me one touch of his hand, 
One touch or one kiss, 
Or one look at his dear, loving eyes ! " 

90 



DEATH WOULD NOT WAIT 



No kiss, and no step and no sound ! 

And she smoothed down her hair and her robe, 

And she folded her arras on her breast. 

And she turned to the wall her sweet face, 

And said as she struggled for breath : 

" Tell my Love that I waited as long as I could." 



91 



MOTHER 



MOTHER 

WHEN mother 's away our house is a tomb ; 
Its light has gone out. 'T is as silent as death ! 
We wander about and we visit her room 

And we walk among echoes and we smother our breath, 

And wonder if ever this silence will end, 
If ever the sun will come out of this cloud, 

And gladness and music and merriment send, 

And lift from our hallways and dungeons this shroud. 

We ask ourselves whether some other kind friend 
Would fill mother's mission and gladden that home, 

And why did they ask us our sunshine to lend ; 
And wonder if ever next Sunday will come. 

We write her a letter each morn and each night. 
And look for her letter each night and each morn. 

But letters are nothing, not love and not light ! 
They bring us no kisses ; they make us forlorn. 

Six days before Sunday ! Six long, hungry days 
Of twenty-four hours ! And each hour like night ; 

Yet hours had minutes, and minutes had rays 
When mother was here, her smile was so bright 

92 



MOTHER 



What word is like mother ? What word is so sweet ? 

What word is so lovely ? What word is so dear ? 
It was mother who guided our tottering feet ; 

It was mother stood near when the specter was here. 



93 



ALGOUS 



ALC.EUS 



DEATH has not conquered ! Often has some cloud 
Stolen at sunset o'er some mountain height, 
Folding its grandeur in a ghostly shroud, 

Hiding its beauty from our straining sight ; 
And often left the towering head still proud, 
Still gleaming in a glow of glorious light, 
A glow more bright that mist conceals from view, 
The form, the face, the majesty we knew. 



n 

That mystery of death ! No eye of age 
Has e'er unveiled its secret to the light. 

No century has spelt its cypher page, 
No ghost retrod its labyrinthine night. 

And yet there is a voice that stills its rage 
And puts the phantoms we so fear to flight ; 

And this voice says : This is not all of life ; 

There is a realm beyond ; 't is free from strife. 



H 



ALC.EUS 

III 

In the long, long night of time that now ensues, 
For cycles hence, oh, would it were for aye ! 

The youth who virtue's thorny path pursues 
Or sighs ambition's dizzy height to try, 

WTio dreams that merit always meets its due, 
And arrows further fly when aimed full high, 

One star shall see ; 't is Hesperus of old ; 

Which to the wondering Magi Bethlehem told ! 

rv 

Who are the poet's lovers ? They 're the young. 

Gray-bearded men love scepters, sheaves of wealth. 
It was of hope, of love, our poet sung. 

These weave the dreams of youth, and joy and health. 
His harp to rhythmic airs was always strung ; 

These take our senses prisoner by stealth ; 
They grasp our fainting courage by the hand 
And lure our weary feet to fairyland. 



Sweet Minstrelsy ! Thou tam'st the savage breast. 

'T was Orpheus, in those far-off mythic times 
Who soothed the winds, the tempests to their rest ; 

He bade the trees obey his lyric chimes, 
The flocks and herds acknowledge his behest, 

Nomadic tribes to love his runic rhymes ; 
He strung the pristine lyre that even now 
Will make the stateliest head in suppliance bow. 

95 



ALCiEUS 



VI 



Imagination ! Here 's the rarest boon 
The genie of our birth has ever given ! 

This makes the midnight of our lives high noon, 
It robes its drudgery in the rays of Heaven ; 

This will the martyr's wail so sweetly tune 

That all who hear it wish they could have striven. 

Scotia's sweet singer, following his plow, 

Bestrode Castilian fields, he scarce knew how. 

vn 

Sweet Hope 1 You buoy the shipwrecked lad 
When tempests howl and madness rules the wave. 

And when the straining rigging shrieks its sad, 
Mad requiem ! You give him heart to brave 

Gaunt Famine till, a skeleton, he is glad 
To eat the flesh his loathing senses crave ; 

You are a child of the Imagination ; 

That dearest, choicest work of God's creation ! 

vni 

Faith ! 'T is with your eyes the Christians gaze 
With pious rapture on the Holy Grail ; 

'T is with your hands the priests the chalice raise ; 
'T is on your knees they kiss the emblems frail ! 

'Tis Faith that tunes the myriad choirs of praise 
On Passion Week ; Faith hears the Saviour hail 

The Father, hears that agonizing cry, 

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. 



ALC^US 

IX 

The hope of immortality, that flower 

That bloomed in Eden, that amaranth that grows 
Perennial in the mind ; that mystic power 

That stills our fears to rest and calms the throes 
Of unbelief; and, like a springtide shower, 

Feeds the seeds of worth where'er life's river flows, — 
This, too, is a child of the Imagination : 
And is the guiding star of our salvation. 

Fancy, this is the jewel of the mind, 

The starry cynosure of wondering eyes, 
The Kohinoor the miners seldom find. 

'T is this that made the bard of Chios rise 
Like Himalaya, miles above mankind. 

It plumes the wing on which the seraph flies 
Whom Thetis folded in her flowing arms 
Before the world had learned Ithuriel's charms. 

XI 

'T is this and sympathy our poet joins ; 

His rhyme and rhythmic measure charm our ear ; 
His pictures and the imagery he coins, 

The symphonies of life his soul can hear, 
The mysteries he plucks from Nature's loins, 

The springs whence flow the sigh, the smile, the tear ; 
Why hearts respond to heart's inspiring beat 
Our poet's eye could see, his tongue repeat. 

97 



ALCiEUS 



XII 

But rhyme cannot nor imagery alone 

Complete the song our voices love to sing ; 

Our ears may hear, our hearts remain a stone ; 
A coin, though stamped, may not possess the ring 

For vrhich no other virtues can atone, 

The something that the unconscious tear can bring 

Unwittingly to sympathetic eyes 

And lure the ^oul from earth to sun-lit skies. 

XIII 

This is the secret of the bard we mourn 1 
His was a lyre attuned to every wrong ! 

No tale of sadness came to him outworn ; 
His back could feel the toiler's biting thong ; 

Could weep with Chloe from her mother torn. 
And coin her tears to words in freedom's song. 

Nor was his rare alembic drugged with gall ; 

He lured all hearts to wish the tyrant's fall. 

xrv 

The poet of the heart is dearest far 
To prince or peasant, all of every race. 

He does not ride that grand Miltonic car, 

In gorgeous panoplies bedecked, through space ; 

Nor does he drive those foaming steeds of war 
Great Homer drove at such Parnassian pace ; 

Nor chain the hurricane, nor ride the storm, 

Nor stalk Hell's streets in grand Dantean form. 

98 



ALGOUS 



XV 



Those fierce tempestuous passions of the heart, 
Conceived of madness under midnight's dome, 

That fire our souls ; that rend old friends apart 
And make the battlefield a hecatomb ; 

That chain the patriots to the headsman's cart ; 
Sending his wife through slums of want to roam ; 

Make life a desert, hope a setting star, 

Dear heaven itself mirage discerned afar ; 

XVI 

That wrath that threw round Heaven a blazing zone 

Of mad rebellion, scaled her jasper wall 
And made her vast champaign with horror groan 

Beneath the demon-host's advance and fall. 
Whose thundering squadrons shook Jehovah's throne 

But brought damnation on the heads of all ; — 
'T is that sublime. Titanic, hellish rage 
The grandest poets paint upon their page ! 

xvn 

Heroic minds heroic actions tell. 

Like organ tones in some cathedral vault 
Their deep-resounding chants through the ages swell; 

They march with Atlas-stride, and never halt, 
Through heaven's highways and through the dens of hell, 

Sublime, Olympian, limping with no fault. 
Our eyes dilate with wonder at their flight ; 
So Andes, sun-crowned Andes, swells our sight ! 

99 



ALC^US 

XVIII 

But the poet of the people and the home, 
'T is he who hears the harmonies of life ! 

He takes our hand through Death's dark dale to roam ; 
He knows the balm will heal the wounds of strife ; 

He treads the slopes where hillside torrents foam ; 
He feels the woes of maiden and of wife ; 

When bending 'neath some load he is the friend 

Who courage, strength, philosophy, can lend. 

XIX 

He knows the keys unlock the mighty past ; 

Has seen the lightnings round old Sinai play ; 
Knows, too, the joys that stay, the joys that last 

No longer than the dew endures the day ; 
He tells us when our shallop sails too fast, 

And shows where Scylla and Charybdis lay ; 
Is ne'er so blind he could not see a child 
And win a seraph's smile whene'er he smiled. 

XX 

Our poet's kindliness, his truth, his grace 
Made each beholder Virtue's self revere ; 

He had a poem written in his face, 

A childlike heart, the wisdom of a seer, 

A soul so kingly that he loved his race, 

A faith in man that dulled the skeptic's spear ; 

A home where Genius, Love, and Sympathy 

Walked hand in hand in sweetest company. 

100 



ALCiEUS 



XXI 



When young Ambition craved a helping hand, 
Footsore and spent, 't was he who saw his need! 

He knew the beacon lights of every land. 
Yet could with pitying grace a beggar feed ; 

And ere the glass of Time had run its sand 
He could with eyes of faith its lesson read 

And meet the Angel at the opening door 

With ne'er a sigh and ne'er a wish for more. 

XXII 

How sweet, how winsome is that modesty 

That does not love the pride of Mammon's eye. 

Nor deem the world's opinion heresy ; 
Nor strive to cut the sun-coursed, upper sky 

On pinions plumed for lyric poetry 
As if the lark the condor's flight would try ! 

Twice blest is he who knows what he can do 

And will with faith the path God blazed pursue ! 

xxni 

Sweet Modesty ! Thou lily of the mind. 

Thou fairest in its garden ! Queen of flowers ! 

Hunt where you will its fellow none will find. 
It paints the rainbow o'er our saddest hours. 

This is the grace that never is unkind 

And ne'er above its frail companion towers ; 

It loves the lowest not the highest seat ; 

The lowliest are the heaviest heads of wheat I 

101 



ALCiEUS 

XXIV 

The mystery of literary fame 

Its witchery and chance to him revealed, 
And gladly told its secret ; why the name 

Of some called great the mist of time concealed, 
And why the spring, whence streams of learning came, 

Had watered broad savannas, has congealed : 
Not all the great Parnassian heights have prest. 
But those, those chiefly, who could paint the best. 

XXV 

Expression ! Here, oh, here 's the wraith allures 
The mind and wakes the attention from the Dead ! 

'T is this enthrals ! This listeners procures ! 

This makes the wise man and the fool both read. 

When dulness only dull-eyed sleep secures 
This bends the knee and bows the head. 

As Homer spoke the king of gods would speak 

If great Olympus' king had spoken Greek. 

XXVI 

One other truth this genie, too, repeated, — 

That mysticism is not poetry; 
Although the eye, blind eye ! has oft been cheated, 

Lured by this strange, deceitful fantasy ; 
Our appetites, too, pall if often treated 

To unwinnowed bran and sun-baked heresy. 
The sons of Fame strike home with cutting phrase ; 
The sword that finds the heart, 't is this they raise 1 

102 



ALC.EUS 

XXVII 

Near by the classic groves of learning where 
Our Alma Mater rears her reverend head, 

There, where the Sun-god's children breathe the air, 
The truly great have breathed, and where they 're fed 

On that ambrosia makes the mind immortal, there 
God's Acre is, a city of the dead. 

Whose pauper palaces enshrine the dust 

Of those who once were faithful, brave, and just. 

XXVIII 

Is there a rood of earth within the lands 
Fair Freedom calls her dearest heritage. 

Except where England's august Abbey stands, 
And Pfere la Chaise's palatial hermitage. 

That holds more souls, once led by Freedom's wand. 
More souls whose fire has lighted Freedom's page, 

Than wait the ferryman's stern nod beside 

The leaden waters of yon Stygian tide ? 

XXIX 

Dear Campo Santo ! Guard thou well the dust 
Of two of godlike faith and childlike heart ! 

Was ever friendship a more sacred trust ? 
Did ever virtue wield a manlier dart ? 

The world on both its choicest laurels thrust. 
And found them ne'er from duty once apart. 

They both bore here a loved and honored name, 

And both left here a living, breathing fame. 

103 



ALGOUS 

XXX 

One hurled the flaming thunderbolts of state 
And was the tribune of a tongue-tied race, 

O'er whom had lowered the thunderclouds of fate ; 
He dared a cruel chivalry to face, 

When madness spawned and bred satanic hate, 
That stalked across our land with Moloch's pace. 

He gave, as Cato had, a senate laws 

But, Csesarlike, forgave a prostrate cause. 

XXXI 

The other is our gentle poet's grave. 

It glows beneath the warmth of daybreak's smile. 
When Morning wakes the sleeping wood and wave ; 

And Evening holds it in her arms awhile, 
As if she would her benediction save. 

For him whose life had ne'er one taint of guile. 
He sleeps death's sleep within the Indian mound, 
And Hiawatha's spirit guards the ground. • 

XXXII 

With what a tenderness we laid him there ! 

And what a majesty enthroned his face ! 
And what a stillness weighed upon the air ! 

The heavens were hung in black without a trace 
Of lustre ! Earth, sky, heads, hearts, hopes were bare ; 
And none save those had borne the shield of care, 
Achates and Patroclus and the Seer 
And Eloquence and Song stood round his bier. 

101 



ALC^US 

XXXIII 

That silken chain that binds him is but death. 

And death is life within another sphere. 
There 's naught can chain the spirit, chain the breath 

That breathed upon the air these songs we hear. 
The music of his lyre shall outlive death, 

Outlive the sigh, the sob, the blinding tear. 
Hark ! Hark ! These songs we hear ! These songs that 

thrill ! 
Our souls shall tremble to their music still. 



105 



A RETROSPECT 



A RETROSPECT 

ALONG the shores of Plymouth I wandered all alone 
And listened to the music of ocean's monotone ; 

The waves, like stallions, dashing against the frozen shore, 
Their icy frontlets shaking, recalled the days of yore ; 

Recalled the tired Pilgrims, the pale-faced and the strong, 
Who left their happy valleys because they hated wrong, 

To find some pious refuge, a wilderness may be, 
Across a thousand, thousand miles of rough and unknown 
sea. 

For could they not love freedom ? Not love sweet free- 
dom's God ? 
Not scorn a royal menace ? Not scorn a papal nod ? 

Could Christians not face famine ? face bleak and sunless 

days ? 
Face ocean's blinding tempests, when led by heaven-born 

rays? 

I saw the Pilgrims landing. How gaunt they were, how 

worn ! 
I saw those weaiy women. How sad they were and torn ! 

106 



A RETROSPECT 



The parson and the soldier, companions now in war, 
To found with sword and Bible a nation ruled by law. 

Now years, aye, decades twenty, stand marshaled, rank on 

rank, 
And line in hoary column Time's ever-changing bank ; 

Now towns and towering cities, now temples raise their 

heads. 
And children hail their mother across the ocean-threads ! 

These shores that then were deserts they throng with busy 

men, 
The eager voice of labor now echoes through the glen ; 

The prairie and the forest, — that then the savage trod, — 
Now ring with glad hosannas and praise the Pilgrims' 
God. 



107 



RIPENED FRUIT 



RIPENED FRUIT 

HERE comes my Love, my Genevieve, 
My fair, my faithful Genevieve ! 
And as she comes the new moon crowns 
Yon clouds that veil the eve. 

My Love comes up the garden walk. 

Is there a sylph can match her mien ? 
She sings, as oft she does, some song, 

A vesper hymn, I ween. 

Yes, 't is that song the sisters sing. 
The nuns whose life a rapture seems, 

As Nature shuts the eye of day 
And soothes to heavenly dreams. 

It falls on my delighted sense 
As falls the music of some lyre 

Upon the fainting, dying ear 
That hears the spirit choir. 

My worldly fancies flee away ; 

There stands before my dreaming eye 
The phantom form of her who heard 

My childhood's earliest cry, 
108 



RIPENED FRUIT 



A smile, a holy smile she has ; 

Her eyes, her spirit eyes are wide 
And turned with sweet benignity 

To my affianced bride. 



109 



THE INDIAN STATUE ON LAKE GEORGE 



THE INDIAN STATUE ON LAKE GEORGE 

SPEAK, lips of bronze ! 
Tell us the words 
You long to utter 
And almost mutter. 
Speak, dumb ghost ! 
" Union is strength." 

Where, savage sage, 

Soldier untaught. 

Learned you this thought ? 
How in these glades, 
Could your hot blades 

Leap forth untaught ? 
"Union is strength." 

English and French 

Met Death's embrace, 

Death's stony face. 
Here in this trench, 

Bastioned by solitude ; 

Two streams of blood 

Joined in one flood. 
" Union is strength." 
110 



THE INDIAN STATUE ON LAKE GEORGE 



Saxon and Celt 
Broke lances here, 
No qualm of fear, 

No dread they felt ! 
The sovereignty 
Of a hemisphere 
Was settled here. 

" Union is strength." 



Ill 



TRUTH 



TRUTH 

WERE Truth a wild gazelle 
Bounding o'er hill and dell, 
And could I snare, the springe I 'd tear, 
And once again embrace 
The pleasure of the chase ! 



112 



LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 



LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 

TRUE Love and Friendship met one morn 
When both were young and cares were few, 
And Pleasure filled her golden horn, 
And Nature wore her loveliest hue. 

The Day sang on as speeds the lay. 
And Laughter filled the woods with glee ; 

These dryads chased the sunshine's ray. 
Played hide and seek round rock and tree. 

But when, from her soft pinions, Night 
The drowsy dews of darkness showered. 

Then Friendship slept, the thoughtless wight ! 
While Love her bed with violets flowered. 



113 



THE FOUNTAIN 



THE FOUNTAIN 

WITHIN a dusty city 
A fountain may be seen ; 
Three little sisters gave it, 
That font of dancing sheen. 

Upon its base a legend 

Their generous impulse tells ; 

How love, like sparkling nectar, 
From childish heartstrings wells ! 

Ere morning gilds the steeples. 
Ere commerce crowds the square, 

The farmer with the bounties 
Kind Nature yields is there. 

What lusty peals of laughter. 
What rustic shouts resound ! 

See how the panting horses 

Drink deep, and paw the ground ! 

And when the noonday burns us 

We see the lolling hound ; 
Then come the merry children 

And splash its gems around ; 

Hi 



THE FOUNTAIN 



'T is evening brings the minstrel, 
The jolly beggar-throng ; 

But they, too, shower their praises 
And bless the gift in song. 



115 



A DISTANT VIEW OF MT. DESERT 



A DISTANT VIEW OF MT. DESERT 

YE castled crags that crown the coast of Maine ; 
Ye giant cliffs whose feet the billows lave ; 
Ye caverns echoing the sea's refrain ; 

The eagle's eyrie and the smuggler's cave 
Were all the homes your wastes would once allow. 

Your domes and pinnacles gleam like some gem 

Upon the swelling bosom of the sea ; 
Your forehead wears a glittering diadem. 

Is this some new Atlantis that we see ? 
Some new Gibraltar, greeting Neptune^s bow ? 

Here sleeps the avalanche ! Here raging brooks 
Leap down the gorge and dance along the dell ; 

Here ghostly shadows haunt shy, sylvan nooks ; 
And fancy's fauns and wood-nymphs dwell; 

All Nature wears the livery of Eden. 

Ye cowlM monks who rear your cloud-girt heads, 
Serene, sublime, from out a glassy sea ; 

Ye monsters whose grim sides are watersheds 

Down which the torrent bounds with unbridled glee 

As stallions will who seek their wonted haven ; 

116 



A DISTANT VIEW OF MT. DESERT 

When in your presence how the soul expands 
In adoration of the Almighty Cause ! 

Thought soars on fairy wings to those far lands, 
Majestic globes that circle to the laws 

Have held the spheres in leash eternal years. 

As we approach, the village can be seen, 
Though dimly seen, amid the mists of morn. 

There 's now a cottage peers from out the green ; 
This is the cote where happiness was born. 

The home that fond remembrance so endears. 



117 



A THRENODY 



A THRENODY 

(Written on revisiting the home of George W. Phillips) 

HOW oft my pious feet have trod 
This sea-girt intervale and velvet sod, 
As level as was Cana's threshing floor ! 
How oft I 've seen about this door 
These sheep that lie like snowdrifts on the lawn ; 
Have seen these elms that herald now the dawn ; 
This brook that sings along the mead 
And sets its flag on every reed ! 
Ah, then, how proud was I to grasp that hand 
Which had no fellow in the land, 
And sit beside this friendly fire 
And hear that voice that matched the lyre ! 

When last my feet passed yonder gate 

I came to mourn the wrath of fate. 

So he, who held a state in awe 

While fulminating freedom's law 

And gathering myriads round his knee 

To teach for love the vedas of the free ; 

And lead from darkness Afric's slave, 

And stand triumphant on Secession's grave ; 

118 



A THRENODY 



Yes, he was here, his heart in tears ; 
Bereft of one, for threescore years. 
Had stayed his hand as Aaron had of old. 
The hand that guided Israel's fold. 

Alas, the stranger stalks these fields ; 

No longer friendship incense yields ! 

Now urchins play beneath this shade 

Where schemes to break those chains were laid ; 

And Sacrilege sits, raven-like, on high, 

And from the gable mocks the passer-by ; 

While Desecration tears that altar down 

Which freedom's lovers covered with a crown. 

Time I What changes have you wrought ! 

Your vandal hand ! You laid Palmyra low ; 

You sowed the tares that round old Carthage grow ; 

You fed with leprosy proud Rome's long walls ; 

Before your sledge the Colosseum falls ; 

Alhambra's turrets kiss the sod ; 

Tall Pisa trembles at your nod ; 

Assyria's palace lies like summer dust ; 

E'en Cheops wastes beneath your rust ; 

Hear great Niagara's thundering roar ! 

It shakes earth's bastions, gnaws her shore. 

All empires fade like mist away ; 

The firmament bows to your sway. 

When Time has writ his impress here, 
Is it strange that man survives his year? 

119 



A THRENODY 



Alas, when Death's hard hand we feel. 

Aye, feel that blow no art can heal, 

Who, who is there will mourn our lot ? 

Our very names will be forgot ! 

He who built the Ephesian dome ? Forgot I 

We who framed Cologne's great fane ? Forgot. 



120 



THE GOLDEN DAY 



THE GOLDEN DAY 

ONE day among these changing years 
Glows with a golden light, 
Among the smiles, the smiles and tears, 
The sunshine and the night. 

It was in April, 't was the spring 

Of life and hope and love ! 
And she who taught these lips to sing 

And taught these feet to rove 

Through Concord meadows roved mth me; 

That Mecca of the mind 
Where first our banner of the free 

Was given to the wind. 

Our steps were like the steps of light ; 

We were like lambs at play ; 
We laughed and sang from morn to night ; 

Oh ! 't was a happy day ! 

We raced across the flowering lea 

To pick the violet ; 
We strayed by Walden's mimic sea 

With gems of emerald set. 
121 



THE GOLDEN DAY 



We floated down the silver stream 

Towards the silver sea ; 
How gorgeous all the world did seem ! 

It glowed with hope and glee ! 

We trod the famous battle-field 

Where fought the minutemen ; 
Where farmers smote great England's shield, 

And died to live again. 

How pride, how pride, our bosoms thrill ! 

how we bless the brave 
And wish, when death strikes, we might fill 

A martyr's holy grave. 

We see the home where Fancy dwelt ; 

We kiss the very earth 
Where Transcendentalism felt 

The travail of its birth. 

Our heads, our hopes, swim round in dreams 

Of fame and fair renown ; 
What 's this before our vision gleams ? 

Is this a laurel crown ? 

'T was here I wove of violets 

A garland for my love ; 
'T was sweeter than a coronet. 

More like the crowns above ! 
122 



THE GOLDEN DAY 



'T was here I kissed her ruddy lips, 
That first fond kiss of love ; 

The bee that June's first honey sips 
Ne'er touched such treasure-trove 



123 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 

THAT agony of love ! It made your life 
Romance. It threw a halo round your name, 
And made a wandering waif a child of Fame ; 
The scorn, alas, of every wedded wife ! 

That fire of love, that lighted up your face 

And warmed your heart and burned upon your pen, 
Tells us, as in your life it told deaf men, 

They'd turned the scales of justice 'gainst your race. 

You said, in words kindling with sympathy. 
That woman was not born to be their slave, 

Nor live the peri's dream of apathy ; 

But born the storm and stress of life to brave, 

To bask in sifted sunshine when she can 
But be the peer, companion, friend, of man. 

Your life had blossomed as does every child's ; 
No wave, no ripple, had disturbed its flow 
Till thunderous gales began in France to blow 

Of civil strife. So terrible and wild. 

They staggered Europe ! She grew pale with fright ! 
Gay Paris was a maelstrom. In her maw 
Honor was swallowed up, Truth, Virtue, Law, 

Till naught survived except the sword of might. 

I2i 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



Who has not seen some moth, lured by the light, 
Fly round its blaze until its wings were burnt ? 

So when this conflagration dazed your sight 
The path the blazing meteor took you learnt, 

Your ardor all ablaze to see destroyed 
Those reeking palaces with pleasure cloyed. 

'T was Freedom, struggling in the serpent coils 

That Tyranny was twisting, age on age ; 

'T was Samson, agonized and hot with rage, 
Bursting asunder Feudalism's toils ! 

Whole streets, whole cities, smoked with fire and blood ; 

Starved peasants, drunk with gore, reigned there su- 
preme ; 

Madness ran riot ; Anarchy was queen ; 
All law, all rights, were drowned in one dark flood. 

While king and courtier shuddered at this sight 
And fled, as Egypt fled before the scourge 

Had lashed her into shame for Israel's right. 
You saw all thrones upon the torrent's verge 

And sang that song of freedom ; so sweet the strain 
All England turned its ear to your refrain. 

Your life, thus far, had been a summer sea, 

Across whose breast no waves of passion sweep, 
As tranquil as a village green when sleep 

Has hushed the voice of day and childish glee. 

125 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



That peace, that joy, which books and dreams bestow, 
That calm delight which contemplation breathes, 
Those wefts of fancy meditation weaves, — 

These are the loves the child is glad to know. 

Across your path no sorrow, fear, or sin 

Had cast its shadow, flung its hideous shape ; 

Nor had one lover tried your heart to win 
Or from your bed one rose or violet take. 

Or touched that chord of heavenly rhapsodies 
Which, struck awry, shrieks hellish monodies. 

Love ! holy Love ! Thy mystery 
What mystic incantations can explain ? 
What necromancy can your secret gain ? 

Who can unwind your skein of history ? 

When Clotho, at our birth, has spun the thread, 

Which through the mazes of futurity. 

In childhood, youth or sear maturity, 
'Mid all the dales and glades and fields we tread, 

'Mid all the paths have been cut out by fate. 
Leads on our feet to that enchanted place 

Where sits the maid she 's destined for our mate, 
Seraphic glory shining in her face. 

The joy, the ecstasy ! This is the dawn 
Of life ! No noonday glare can match this morn ! 

126 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



'T was ever thus ! 'T is thus 't will ever be ! 
'T was so with you, fair Mary, when you met 
The fate by whom your psalm of life was set. 

This was in France, beside her siren sea. 

Love thrilled your ears with such sweet melody 
As thrilled to trembling Eloisa's ear. 
When Abelard — his voice we still can hear, — 

Sang his impassioned bursts of rhapsody. 

that delirium that fills the soul 

That ne'er before has sipped the wine of love ! 
So does a shower fill some barren knoll 

Till this refreshing incense from above 

Has slaked its thirst ; and its reviving powers 
Have made the sullen earth blossom with flowers. 

And what a Midas-wealth thou gavest him ! 
Hadst thou been ten times woman nothing more 
Could you bestow. The jewels that you wore 

You threw, to gratify each idle whim, 

As pearls are thrown to swine, down at his feet. 

You gave your heart's red rubies willingly ; 

You coined your blood and gave it eagerly ; 
Your mind, which God had made the seat 

Where admiration knelt as at a shrine, 
You spent to solace his insipid leisure, 

Your wit and wisdom spilt like generous wine ; 
You cringed beneath the lash of his displeasure ; 

127 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



Your honor, hope of heaven surrendered up 
To fill anew his ever empty cup. 

Oh, that the tongue of man had power to tell 

The sad, sad tale of his ingratitude ! 

tender heart ! Your sufferings' plenitude 
No heart but woman's heart can know full well. 

Perhaps above, perhaps before, that throne 
Where every sin must kneel and own its own, 
We yet may know the woes, the tears, the worth 
Of that pale, trembling soul who, while on earth. 

Bore up her staggering load of scorn alone, 
Aye, drew it close, aye, closer hugged it still 

Because love's tendrils round two forms had grown ; 
Maybe, when Magdalen awaits God's w^ll. 

She may, and may, before all Christendom, 
Receive her due, her crown of martyrdom. 

How well you bore the frosts of cold neglect ! 
They kill, as mildew will, by slow decline 
The rose that droops when suns forget to shine. 

At first no lisp, no whisper of regret. 

You bore his absence. He but seemed to toy 
In gentle dalliance, not inconstant love. 
'T is thus, you thought, the fond, coquettish dove 

Flies off, that his caressings may not cloy. 

128 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



And when you chid his loitering delay, 
It was by fond reminders of those hours — 

What aftermath can e'er their loss repay ? — 
Together spent in sweet Castilian bowers. 

'T is there the wine of love the lover sips 

As Cupid sipped from Psyche's sparkling lips ! 

" Come back, my Love ! Come home ! Come, drown your 
cares 

In that intoxicating cup that 's ever 

Full to the brim, though you have drunk till never 
Another drop of bliss, e'en unawares, 

" Could your deep well of happiness contain. 

No, do not say that ^ Commerce keeps you still ' ; 

^ You would but cannot do your own sweet will ' ; 
' Were Ceres kind you never would refrain ! ' 

'' I hate the name of Commerce, hate the ring 
Of gold ! These sirens keep my Love from me I 

Remember, Gilbert dear, there is one thing 
That gold can never buy. And oh, pray see 

" These jewels ! We will hang about your neck 
As lo's arms the neck of Jove did deck. 

" This morn my pillow sighed and sobbed with tears. 

I wakened from a dream, so weird and wild ! 

I saw, methought, some goblin steal our child ; — 
Her prattle now her father never hears, 

129 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



" And never sees her pretty winsome ways. 
This was my dream. The God of day 
Was sporting with the waves upon the bay 

At Havre. We two were watching his bright rays, 

" Dancing like water-sprites along the shore. 
Our darling Frances, playing on the quay, 
Too near the edge, fell off into the sea. 

As quick as thought you sprang to rescue her ; 

" I saw her rise. I saw you grasp her gown ; 
When, lo, a woman's hand dragged you both down ! 

" Do not reproach me, Love ! oh, no ! no ! no ! 

I long so^much to see again your face 

And there your hopes, your joys, your wishes trace ; 
To see, again, the light of love aglow ; 

" To gaze into your eyes, those hazel eyes ; 
See Cupid paint again Love's dawning blush 
Until that holy light your whole face flush ; 

To hear you say how dearly you still prize, — 

" And say it, too, as often as I woo ! — 

^ That heart that beats in rhyme to my own heart, 

Chanting my name and then my sweetheart's too ' ; 
And hear you say : ' We ne'er, no ne'er, shall part ' ; 

" ' Come, come, my Love, and lean upon this arm ; 
This arm shall be your buckler against harm.' 

130 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



" Ah, me ! The snows have come since your dear eyes 
Have shed, like suns, their light and life around, 
Making this barren moor with joy abound, 

Scaring the darkness, bidding the morning rise 

"And fill my bosom with the joys of peace. 

What ! can my mother, England, have some charm, 
Some talisman, which, while it would not harm 

A favorite child, yet slowly would release 

'* Life's sweet enchanter to this exiled maid ? 

My nights are ages ! Oh, I moan for sleep ! 
This fever will not yield to other aid. 

My Mother Isle ! If thou must longer keep 

" My love a prisoner, in durance vile, 
Unbar thy gates for just a little while I 

" I am an alien from your fireside. 
Your pride, dear England, will not me forgive, 
Nor let me with your wedded children live 

Till she who loved too well becomes a bride. 

" My Mother ! Tears, hot tears shall wash your feet ; 
My grief shall bare my trembling, shuddering soul, — 
What surging seas of anguish o'er it roll ! — 

For one sweet smile — that smile I used to meet, 

" When, free as air, light-hearted as the roe, 

I was a guest in cottage and in hall, 
Where senates thunder and where courtiers glow. 

And always shed a kindly light o'er all. 

131 



WOLLST ONECRAFT 



" Nor can I quite e'en now these thorns regret, — 
Not love, 't was cold respect Diana met ! — 

" this huge weight of woe that drags me down ! 

My life is wrecked ! My peace, my pride's undone ! 

The gamins in the street run from me now ; 
One rake, has wrecked a score, now dares to frown ; 

" And, crudest of blows ! the cause of all 

Has turned his back on me. ^ She was not wise,' 
He says ; and spurns a richer prize 

Than that false, painted jade who caused Troy's fall. 

^^ The vale of tears, this, this must be my share ! 

And now I must that scarlet letter wear. 
And stagger on with my great cross of care, 

And see on every side Philistines stare, 

'^ And say this bawd should stand within the stocks, 
This scarlet woman should have bars and locks. 

" How long, my God, must I this life endure ? 
When Tarquin robbed Lucretia of her crown 
She quickly threw life's shattered scepter down. 

But death, will it nepenthe's balm secure ? 

" Thou murky Seine ! Thy cold, thy hungry wave 
How many a heart has hugged to save 
Ages of woe ! A coward fears to brave 
The dark oblivion of a watery grave. 

132 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



" If thy Lethean tide should choke my breath 
And draw its dusky veil across my eyes, 

If hope's delusive dream should fade in death, 
Would then my soul on spirit pinions rise ? 

"Ah, let no passing, pitying stranger pause ; 
For nature has but bowed to nature's laws ! 

" Dear Saviour ! must I drain the hemlock's lees 
And miss that pearl for which I gave my life. 
That priceless guerdon — to be called his wife ? 

Oh, must my soul in Hades starve and freeze ? 

" Stay ! Palsy strike me dumb ere one harsh word 
Escape my lips ! They 've trembled to the kiss 
Of one who wandered from excess of bliss, 

And ne'er the burial chant of love has heard ! 

" Dear Father ! I would beg, if not impiety. 
Beg on my knees that those engulfing seas 

My revery sees be not reality. 
temper Thou that fierce Atlantic breeze ; 

" And let those shipwrecked toilers of the sea 
Regain some friendly shore from danger free ! " 

Brave Mary Wollstonecraft ! Your name survives 
The ruin Time has wrought of prouder fame. 
Their phantom fanes and phantom castles wane, 

Those spectral walls and domes they in their lives 

133 



WOLLSTONECRAFT 



Emblazoned o'er with famous victories 
Of deeds or eloquence of tongue or pen, 
Where Senates listened or where Justice's ken 

Sat in her majesty of centuries. 

Their voice of thunder does not so resound 

In Fame's fair temple, where proud Glory dwells. 

As does that trembling voice of anguish found 
Imprisoned in your heart's Tartarean cells. 

Affection ! Here 's the chord which, struck aright, 
Makes life's long fray a rapture of delight ! 

But, yet, if later joys could e'er atone 
For agonies that made a woman's life 
A maelstrom, in whose maw an unwed wife 

Saw agonies of love go down ; aye, saw that throne 

From childhood she had hoped to reign upon^ 
Lie all a mocking ruin at her feet. 
Perhaps those days, so few, so calm, so sweet, 

Where Peace and wedded Love and Wisdom shone, 

And where your shallop sailed upon life's sea 
As sails the nautilus, 'mid Indian airs. 

On ocean's mirror when the breeze blows free. 
Were some sweet solace for your woes and cares. 

Oh would you know, when you gave life for life. 
Your sad, last tears would christen Shelley's wife ! 



134 



AT ANCHOR 



AT ANCHOR 

OUR sloop is at last in the bay ! 
The gale that has harrowed the waves 
And deluged our deck with their spray 
Has returned to its home in the caves. 

Let us rest, while the gale takes its rest ! 

It has made a long night of the day, 
And has made of that night one long quest, 

But our woes with the clouds roll away. 



135 



AURI SAGRA FAMES 



AURI SACRA FAMES 

BEFORE thy shrine I kneel, conquered at last ! 
All other dreams are o'er. I worship thee ! 
Thou art the jewel that will buy me peace, 
And smooth life's whirlpool to an inland sea. 
On wings of gold thy worshippers can fly 

To Indian climes, can tempt the isles of Greece 
Can haunt Circassian vales where Luxury 
Feeds on ambrosia 'neath that purple sky. 

The Nymphs and Graces follow at your heels ; 
The Muses dance to your melodious strain ; 

'T is Bacchus sips your cup until he reels 
Or trips with Love in Midas' gorgeous train! 
You are the key unlocks the hermit's cave ; 

You raise the feeble, paint Care's pallid cheek 

With damask hues, support the steps of Age 
And strew with joys the pathway to the grave. 



136 



AN ASCENSION ODE 



AN ASCENSION ODE 

HAIL, Holy Morn, 
Ascension's glorious morn ! 
All hail, Immortal Day ! 
Hail, hail, thou faintest blush of dawn ! 

Millions salute thy ray. 
To-day our Saviour rose, 
Cast off his earth-stained clothes, 
His cerements of clay. 

He rose as a snow-white dove 
Mounts on the wings of love, 
Away, away, above ; 
Away from these haunts of men, 
Away from the eye-sight's ken, 
Away from these dens of earth, 
This womb of his death and birth. 

At first a fleecy cloud, 
An angel's spirit shroud, 
He rises through the air. 
No eye has yet seen where ; 
And then, a glow of light. 
He fades away from sight 
137 



AN ASCENSION ODE 



Beyond that veil of blue 

No mortal has peered through, 

That veil of ethereal hue 

No spirit has peered through ; 

He floats in atmosphere 

Sidereal atmosphere, 

Beyond our hemisphere, 

In realms where the planets sweep 

Across the celestial deep. 

When fades that glow of light 
And all is closed from sight 
We grope in darkest night. 

But Faith, our Faith believes 
This Light our sins relieves, 
This Christ our sins forgives, 
Those sins the Fiend conceives 
Will cleanse from the stains of Earth. 
Faith and Faith only sees his worth. 
Faith knows his heavenly birth, 
That he came through infinite space 
And loves with infinite grace. 



138 



THE ANVIL AND THE BROOK 



THE ANVIL AND THE BROOK 

HEAR Labor's deep-toued undertow ! 
A dozen, dozen miles away 
From where Neponset's lazy flow 
Is lost to sight in Boston bay. 
The roar, the clash, the clang and ring 

Of thundering hammers strike the ear, 
Here anvils their loud chorus sing, 
And Labor's lusty chant we hear. 

Chorus 

A-ding-a-ding, a ding-a-ding, 
' T is thus the merry anvils sing ; 
A-ding-a-ding, a-ding-a-dong, 
' T is thus the anvils sing along ; 
And, as their mighty cadence rings, 
In harmony each blacksmith sings — 
A-ding-a-ding, a ding-a-dong — 
Come join our chorus, sing our song. 

So Vulcan, with his giant will, 
Did weld the thunderbolts of Jove, 

Pandora fashion by his skill. 

With iEtna for his treasure-trove. 
139 



THE ANVIL AND THE BROOK 

But mark the Vulcans of our age ! 

The mountains bow before their skill, 
For they have tamed Sierra's rage 

And bent the Rockies to their will. 

Chorus 

The stream that danced adown the hill, 

And danced, untamed, along the dell, 
Now trips to merrier music still 

And sings its song with grander swell ; 
Obeisance to its master makes 

Whene'er its current bends the beam. 
And says with every bow it makes 

It is not now an idle stream. 

Chorus 

" Now as it glides along my shore, 

The furnace glows upon my breast ; 
I see the many tons of ore 

That lie there waiting my behest ; 
I laugh at all the wealth bestowed. 

The magic fashioned by my aid, 
I moan for all the years I flowed, 

A mirror for the sun and shade.'* 

Chorus 



140 



ALFREDA 



ALFREDA 

THE village had sunk into sleep ; 
The churchyard was dreary and dark ; 
The form of a maid, and a newly made grave ; 
That was all. But it made my flesh creep. 

<' Forgive me, forgive me, dear mother, 
For I have forgiven your shame ; 

But hear, hear my sighs and my anguish, 
And tell me my own father's name ! " 

The sod did not hear, did not answer, 
The mother had turned into dust, 

But her spirit, on spirit-wings speeding, 
Had flown to the realms of the just. 

By her lover disowned and forsaken. 
She had carried her burden of sadness. 

Had been chased by the fiend of remorse 
Till she sank at the cross in sheer madness. 



141 



BIRTHDAY ODE 



BIRTHDAY ODE 

(Written to celebrate the day when Maiden became a city) 

HAIL, City of the Mystic! 
This is thy natal day, , 

And thy elder sisters greet tliee. 
Thou rosy, dimpled fay. 
Around thy cradle meeting 
We give thee joyous greeting. 
The circling dance together wing, 
A psean of rejoicing sing. 
And celebrate thy jubilee. 

Now gleams another gem 

Around the diadem 

That crowns thy queenly mother's brow. 

By royal sire begot, 

In infancy forgot. 

Her father once in childhood thought 

And once in her full maidenhood 

To choke her struggling life. 

Behold our mother's womanhood ! 
She walks among her sister States 
In crimson robes of majesty. 
The glories of her past 
Have stamped their impress on her brow. 
142 



BIRTHDAY ODE 



The light of hope illumes her eye, 

'T is fixed upon futurity. 

Her fame is like the rising sun, 

Our Commonwealth her sisters crown, 

The queen of learning and of song. 



143 



MT. DESERT 



MT. DESERT 

THERE is an island off the coast of Maine, 
A lovely isle. It borders on the path 
The white-winged gulls of commerce scour for gain. 
A desert isle ! The fisher's lonely hearth 

Is all stern Nature's will allows. 
Her face is granite, but her eyes a gem 
That sparkles on the bosom of the sea, 

And lures within its rays those weary men 
Whom Care pursues, who long to be set free 

From toil and roam where'er the south wind soughs. 

Here are tall cliffs, deep bays, and babbling brooks ; 

Here, smiling fields and velvet vales and laughing dells ; 
Here God has set lone lakes and lonelier nooks 
Where Fancy with the dancing dryads dwells. 
And dressed rough Nature in the garb of Eden. 
Ye druid shapes who raise your cowled heads ! 
Ye grisly, giant crags ! Ye water-sheds 

That foaming coursers, fierce and wild and free, 
Bound down, to find afar some greener haven ! 

When 'neath your spell, oh, how the soul expands 
In meek obeisance to the Almighty Cause ! 

Thought soars on spirit wings to Spirit lands. 
Ethereal spheres in leash to phantom laws 

144 



MT. DESERT 



That guide the plummet and that chain the globe. 

From this bald peak the village can be seen. — 
'T is golden in the vapors of the morn ! — 

That cottage, too, behind yon veil of green, 
Dear nest in paradise where Love was born 

And Peace and Sweet Contentment had their birth. 



145 



WEDDING BELLS 



WEDDING BELLS 

LIGHTLY and merrily, 
Blithely and cheerily, 
Shouted the wedding bells, 
Shouted and sang with joy 
When Annie was wed. 

Softly and peacefully. 
Calmly and cheerfully. 
Shone forth the queen of night, 
Showering her pearls of light. 
Showering her blessings bright, 
On Annie's fair head. 



146 



NIL DESPERANDUM 



NIL DESPERANDUM 

HOW vast is the realm of the ocean ; 
'T is a boundless, a fathomless main ! 
To-day 't is a whirlpool of motion, 
To-morrow a mirror again. 

A drop, only one, was drunk up ; 

And 't was crystallized into a pearl. 
And a queen set it high in a diadem crown 

As the gem of that wonderful whorl. 

Here, here is the tale of a lifetime ; 

For 't is drops make the ocean of time ! 
Why, the hills with their snows and their frost-rime 

Were once like the dew on the thyme. 



147 



THE GRAVE OF EMERSON 



THE GRAVE OF EMERSON 

IN Sleepy Hollow 'neath these pines 
That chant to-day their sobs and sighs, 
Here, where this purple laurel twines, 
The sage of Concord lies. 

Two forest monarchs, sentinels, 

Is all we eager travelers find ; 
And on his grave these immortelles 

Suggest his living mind. 

No hedge ! No name ! No mark I No stone I 
But why this grave with hedges bound ? 

The lover from whatever zone 
Will find his sweetheart's mound. 

Thou, Nature, thou wilt guard this grave 
As thou hast guarded that so long ; 

They were thy lovers, true and brave, 
Romance and Delphic song. 



1^8 



HOME AND COUNTRY 



_HOME AND COUNTRY 

WHAT man has no affection 
For country or for home 
But follows the direction 

In which his fancies roam ? 
Who, plowing India's ocean 

Or scanning Moscow's dome, 
Ascending Chimborazo 

Or loitering in Rome, 
Has ne'er a twinge of sadness 

Has ne'er a thought of home ? 

Who, floating down the Danube 
Or cresting Baltic's foam 

Is never filled with gladness, 

A gladness kin to madness, 
When our dear flag is seen 

With other nations vying, 
That shield of scarlet sheen ? 



A man without a nation. 

Like Ishmael of old. 
With no place in creation 

That binds with bands of gold,- 
149 



HOME AND COUNTRY 



To him what place is sacred ? 
What love has he or hatred ? 
What sin would make him falter ? 

What is there that he fears ? 
He would despoil an altar, 

Rob a vestal in her tears ! 



UO 



MY MAIMED HEIFER 



MY MAIMED HEIFER 

AH, she was beautiful ! 
An unantlered deer, 
And of all kine the peer ! 
The soul of lo glistened 
In those trustful eyes. 

Her birth, her form, her grace 
Bespoke an ancient race, 
Fit mate for Jove 
When he assumed her mien 
And took Europa on his back 
And swam the Cretan sheen. 

An accident, alack! 
Has stolen beauty's trace 
And spoiled her of her grace. 
And now she 's like a maiden, 
With a scar upon her face. 



151 



MIRAMAR 



MIRAMAR 

I HEAR the loud laugh of the sea-gull, 
And I note the sly scorn of his taunt, 
As he rises above the hot sand-bar 
And sails to his island haunt. 

And I wish that I were a sea-gull, 

And could fly from this sun and this sand, 

And find, too, some island refuge 

Where the Ice-King is lord of the land. 



152 



OPPORTUNITY 



OPPORTUNITY 

HEAR how the cascade is grumbling ! 
Down, down the deep gorge it is tumbling ; 
How it dashes and splashes ! 
From bowlder to bowlder 't is leaping ; 
From shoulder to shoulder 't is sweeping ; 
How it flashes and crashes ! 

Stay the swift stride of its gladness, 
Chain this tornado of madness, 

'T were to lasso the wind ! 
But down in yon dale there 's no torrent ; 
There are children at play in its current ; 

A child could it bind. 



153 



ALCJEUS AND SAPHIA 



ALCiEUS AND SAPHIA 

ALCiEUS loved a maid, a country maid, 
And showed the maid his heart. 
And thought, poor swain ! that she his love repaid, 
And they should never part. 

But mark his fate ! His Saphia was the dove 

That loves with other doves to toy ; 
The simple maid knew not the worth of love, 

For she was young and coy. 

Alcseus could not brook her smiles, 

Her thoughtless smiles for other swains ; 

His jealous heart rebelled against these wiles 
And brooded o'er its pains. 

But she was true ; for when she knew the grief 

Her artless coquetries had caused. 
She fain, kind heart, would fly to his relief; 

In her caprice she paused. 

And tried by smiles, by tears, by all she knew, 

Ry sweet endearings he loved most, 
To hold the heart that once she drew ; 

She only held its ghost ! 

154 



ALGOUS AND SAPHIA 



The bird once flown may not return ; 

The swain once gone may stay away, 
Fair maid. If from this tale you do not learn, 

You may some other day. 



155 



A SOUVENIR 



A SOUVENIR 

THOSE laughing eyes of blue, - 
'T is twilight's azure hue, 
With starlight trembling through 1 
They light my lonely hours 
As gleams of gorgeous flowers 
Will lighten lonely bowers. 

That face of twinkling smiles 
That with a seraph's wiles 
My memory beguiles ; 
That shape of dancing light, 
I saw it with delight 
Dance in my dreams to-night ! 

That voice ! 'T is like the rill 
That ripples down the hill, 
Sweeter than linnet's trill ; 
Now as the laughing wind 
Sings through my swinging blind 
I can its echo find. 

Can I those days forget, 
Those happy days regret 
When dangling in your net ? 
Did I those meshes tear 
When in your silken lair, 
Sweet Emily, my Fair ? 
156 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 
A Tragedy 

I. Love 

Tfl IS the beautiful chateau of Chaumont ! 

J- 'T is the loveliest valley in France ! 
Here the slopes of the river are vineyards, 
Here the sunshine forever beguiles ; 
Here the meadows are gorgeous vrith poppies 
And the skies of the violet's hue ; 
Here the fields and the fells and the hillsides 
Are purple with clustering vines ; 
And the nightingale sings in the branches ; 
And the river, too, sings in its sleep ; 
Here the woods are aglow with the colors 
Old Autumn has spread with the brush 
He has dipt in an ocean of russets 
And sprinkled o'er woodland and plain. 

Now the hand of the rosy-cheeked maiden 
Is culling the clustering grape ; 
And the hand of the husbandman pressing 
The rubicund rills of new wine. 
'T is the birth of the fanciful evening, 
And the hand of the King of the Day 

157 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Is flinging his pearls and his rubies, 

And the shadows come on in his train. 

He is gilding the chateau with splendors 

And is plating its bastions with gold, 

He is gilding its windows and turrets 

With the colors he lends to the mist. 

See the towers ! They stand there like sentries ! 

See him skim like a bird o'er the lake 

And trip o'er the sheen in the fosses 

With the shimmering step of a ghost ! 

This chateau was built by Amboise, 

And once was a royal demesne. 

Ere the days of our tale 't was a palace, 

A palace of rural delights. 

Here queens have had f^tes and rare pageants. 

And courtiers have knelt at their feet ; 

That queen whose escutcheon is crimsoned 

With the blood of a myriad saints, 

And that other, who oft was a mother 

And was shrived by the kiss of two kings, 

But who bore them no kingly descendant, — 

Here both have held pageants and courts ! 

But when kings had drunk full of its pleasures 
And had longed for the wine of the Louvre, 
This chateau they tossed to some courtier ; 
And its pleasance and ample parterres 
No longer were gorgeous with splendor. 
Or rang with the joust and the fete ; 

158 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



No longer they echoed the laughter 

Of gay cavaliers and gay maids ; 

No longer these danced on its greensward, 

Sipped wine in its banqueting halls 

Or drank of that wine — 't is the sweetest ! 

That wine of a passionate love. 

Again there 's the ring of a revel ! 

Again are the lawns as of yore 

Alive with gay gallants and maidens, — 

A birthday has come to the Count. 

He was born in the glow of this grandeur ; 

The sands of his years are a score ; 

He was rocked in this cradle of princes, 

He has played with them when but a boy ; 

He has chased the wild boar through the forest, 

Brought the roe and the stag to their knees, 

And hunted with bow and with falcon ; 

He has cleft a steel helm with his axe. 

But his grace and the ease of his manner, 

These touch a maid's heart like a wand ! 

And now, — 't is the Cardinal's bidding, — 
He 's to live in the glare of the court. 
Ah, that glare ! 'T is the sun of the tropics ! 
It will double the blood in your veins 
If you live in the smiles of your sovereign ; 
But will shrivel the tree to a stalk 
If this sunshine shall change into shadow. 
And you dwell in the gloom of his frown. 

159 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Now the chateau and pleasance are singing 

With merriment, music, and mirth, 

And now Love pays its devoirs to Beauty, 

And Pleasure is partner with Youth. 

Two forms stand aloof in the moonlight, 

Half-hid in a leafy retreat, 

In a tender, entrancing seclusion. 

All aloof from the joys that abound. 

'T is the trees that must tell us their converse : — 

" I must leave all these haunts of our youth. 

This palace that memory hallows, 

These meadows so perfumed with joy, 

Where our days were for love and each other. 

And our life was as free as the fawn's ; 

Where we played with the deer on the woodland 

And sailed our big ships in its pools ; 

Built castles on cloud-rolling summits 

And peopled their halls with our dreams. 

It was then that the knight wooed the ladye, 

And 't was then that the ladye avowed 

That the power of heaven's espousal 

Was stronger than man's petty laws ; 

Said that Love and that Faith and that Honof 

Were a chain that was stronger than steel. 

'* Will the plight that we lisped in our childhood. 
Will it die like the breeze on the lake 
When it leaves ne'er a ripple behind it ? 
Will our pinions be dipt ere we fly ? " 
His accents were trustful and tender, 

160 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



And so was the maiden's reply : 

" The lake that the tempest has furrowed, 

It will ne'er be a mirror again 

Till the spirit that ruffled the water 

Shall shatter the trident he holds. 

But alas I Ah ! the fate that enfolds us ! 

A princess is feof of the crown. 

Her hand is not hers. 'T is her sovereign's ! 

For she never can wed 'gainst her will. 

A daughter of Prudence and Statecraft, 

'T is her suzerain barters her hand. 

" Our Queen ! It is she is my giver ; 
It is down at her feet you must kneel. 
I would that you knelt to high Heaven, 
And could plead where the peasant can plead ! 
But here 't is the prince wins the princess, 
Though her hand, not her heart, is his prize. 
My heart ! It still rings with your echoes ; 
For they fill all its chambers and halls." 

Were words ever lover's best language ? 
With her hand in his own he replies. 
" Some raven, some bird of foreboding — 
There always are ravens at court — 
Has whispered a throne is your suitor. 
And has pleaded high reasons of state ; 
And the Queen says the ermine's your birthright, 
And sanctions and furthers this suit. 
Ah, who can match swords with an empress ? 

161 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



In her veins live a hundred great kings, 
Great kings of the days of the Csesars, 
And the Austrian Emperor's sway. 
Ah ! a crown will outweigh my affection, 
As a nugget outweighs a mere vow. 

" But a crown has its burden of sorrows 
That have lowered kings' heads in the dust. 
There 's more joy in a vine-trellised cottage, 
If the vine has been nurtured with love, 
If its roots have been wet with affection, 
And its tendrils been tended with care. 

" Let us leave all this glare and this glamour 1 
Let us wash folly's stains from our hands ; 
Let us seek, seek elsewhere some Eden 
Whose fields do not bristle with thorns I 
Fame ! Fame ! What is Fame ! 'T is a bauble 
Some jester has sewn in his cap ; 
Its tinkle attracts to his folly, 
It is naught but the jingle of bells. 

" Let us seek, let us find some new country, 
I^et us find a new home in some dale. 
Where the harp that God hangs in the branches 
Will be music and joy to our ears. 
Let us find a new home in old England, 
A home by her many- voiced sea ; 
Where the daylight is ringing with music, 
And the nightingale wakens the night. 

162 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Affection will tune nature's chorus 
And our cup of delight will be full." 

How sweet are the chimes at a wedding I 

No music of man is so sweet ! 

Two hearts in true melody beat 

To the strains of the sweetest of raptures, 

That music of home and true love. 

Long, long did she sit there in silence, 

And her face was beclouded with thought. 

But her eyes to the eyes of her lover 

Told him well what her lips would have said. 

'T is the eyes are a maiden's true tell-tale, 

For their language is truer than words. 

But each moment the shadows grew deeper, 

And the lines in her face grew more firm, 

In the tide of contending emotions 

That swept through the depths of her soul. 

At length, and her voice was all pity, 

And her accents were trembling with love, 

Meditation became resolution, 

And the maid took the helm from the man. 

But the tears in her eyes ! These betrayed her ! 

How a bell wakes the night like a knell ! 

" You know what my aching heart answers ; 

But my head has another response. 

For years you have burned with ambition 

To take up the reins of the state 

163 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



And the quadriga drive to Olympus 
When the tottering Cardinal falls. 
For years you have sighed for the glory 
Exalts the white plume of Navarre. 

" Your teeth you have ground with resentment 

At the blows that the Cardinal dealt 

With the sword that his genius has sharpened, 

And the bolts he has forged for the Church, 

On the heads of our Huguenot people. 

It was murder, you said, and red sin 

To strangle the rights of our barons. 

Bum brands on the backs of our saints. 

" A child at the knees of your mother, — 
There Hannibal learned to hate Rome ! — 
You have eaten the bread of contention 
And hatred of priest-craft and crime. 
Are the hopes, the fond hopes of your childhood. 
Are the prayers and the sighs of that saint. 
Laid her child, only child, on the altar 
As Jacob laid his on the pyre, 
Are these all to fade out like the sunshine 
That gleams on the sea for an hour 
And wanes into midnight Cimmerian ? 
This were choking the vine ere the fruit ! 
This were strangling the child in the cradle ! 
It were smiting the bosom you nursed ! 
No ! No ! Let us pause at this whirlpool — 
We know not the greed of its maw — 

164 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



As the voyager will pause at the Rhine-flood, 
And think ere he takes the great plunge. 

" But now let us back to the pleasance, 
For 't is time that the dance was resumed. 
But to-night at the hour when the ghosts walk 
Let us visit the ghosts of our dead ; 
They once were accounted as sages, 
And were sponsors for both at the font. 
Come and kneel at the shrine of our fathers, 
At the shrine of their Father, their God, 
And beg that the star which they followed 
Be the Bethlehem star for our path." 

II. Consecration 

It is morning. The sun has arisen 
Through the mists that are flooding the plain. 
So Artemis comes from the ocean. 
Her face all aglow from her bath. 
Outside of the chateau's tall portal. 
Its mighty portcullis upraised. 
And the drawbridge that guards it uplifted, 
A great Spanish war-horse is fretting 
And prancing and pawing the ground 
And champing his bit in his fervor. 
He is scenting some battle afar. 
See his corselet of steel and his gorget. 
And his saddle-cloth gleaming with gold, 
And the trappings that come from Cordova ! 

165 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



See his coat with that luster of silk ! 

Nobility glows in his action, 

It glows in the gleam of his eye, 

In the breath that is clouding his nostrils, 

In the curve and the poise of his necLj 

If to-day there were only some tourney. 

Another grand pageant of gold ! 

There 's a man stands at arms by him, waiting, 

In his helmet and haubert of mail, 

With the falchion he wore at Rochelle 

When that Huguenot citadel fell. 

Not long. Then the drawbridge is lowered, 
The portcullis raised, and the Count 
Cometh forth, all arrayed for his journey. 
So the sun cometh forth from a cloud. 
There is someone beside him, — his mother. 
A smile and a word of good cheer. 
And she gives him her sweet benediction ; 
Like incense it perfumes the air ! 
Then our knight rides away on his journey 
On to Paris, the King, and the court. 
With the sunset of boyhood behind him 
And the sunrise of manhood before. 

Descending the steep, through the lime-trees. 
As he reaches the roadway he halts. 
One moment ! A bound through the coppice ! 
And there — such a vision in white ! — 

1^6 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Is a form at a half-open lattice. 

A salute ; and he turns and rides back. 

His way lies along by the river, 
And the vineyards that line its broad shores, 
By the tower that stands in its elbow ; 
This was built by the Romans of old 
In the days when the sons of the forest 
And their primitive corselets and shields 
Vercingetorix formed for a buckler 
'Gainst the might of imperial Rome ; 
When the merciless legions of Csesar, 
The centuries surname the Great, 
Had conquered all Gaul to the channel ; 
And the world, from Atlantic to Ind, 
Bowed its head to this King of the forum. 

The river still flows as of yore, 

Still sings and still smiles in the summer, 

Still dances and laughs on its way ; 

And in winter, when snows scorn the mountains, 

Still thunders its way to the sea. 

And our knight and his squire tread its windings, 

And the palfrey jogs after the steed 

As a poodle will follow a stag-hound ; 

Jogs on and jogs on and jogs on. 

The sunset was laying its fingers 
On Orleans as they entered its gate ; 
A name that in history's twilight 
Still glows with the glory of day ; 

167 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



A name that still stirs our emotions 
Though oblivion's slumber and gloom 
Have veiled from our sight many others. 
It was here that the Conquest was stayed ! 
It was here that a nation, awaking, 
As a giant awakes from a trance, 
Broke the teeth of the lion of England, 
Long buried so deep in her throat ! 
It was here, too, a maiden, a peasant, 
Divine in the strength of her faith, 
Revived the dead words of the Scripture : 
By faith have great mountains been moved. 

But to-night St. Bartholomew's fingers 

Are printing their stains on her robe ! 

To-night in the coils of the serpent 

Are the bodies of freedom's elect ! 

The market-place surges with people. 

They are filling the streets and the lanes, 

They are crowding the house-tops and windows ; 

Their torches are standing in lines, 

In rows and in serpentine alleys ; 

They are gleaming and glaring with fire. 

They are painting with passions their faces. 

These burn like the heat of a forge. 

Here is hate. Here is joy. Here is horror. 

Here is hate that a Huguenot dares 

To challenge the nod of the Pontifi"; 

Here is joy that a Huguenot suffers ; 

Here 's horror at his writhings and pangs. 

168 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



In the center a pile of dry fagots. 
Among them there towers a cross, 
A man to this cross has been girded ; 
The cross is surrounded with priests ; 
The man has the robe of his office, 
A teacher and shepherd of men. 
But the face of the victim, — 't is shining 
With a light that is not of this world. 
'T is the light that illumined the Master's 
Upon Calvary's glorious pyre ! 

Now a priest sets his torch to the fagots, 

A hush as of death thrills the throng. 

See the flames ! Hear them hiss ! Hear them crackle ! 

See them shoot out their villainous tongues ! 

See the people ! they surge with strange passions ; 

Some are sad ; some are glad ; some are mad ; 

Some groan ; and some sigh ; and some, tossing 

Their torches, set bedlam on high. 

A riot of beasts ! E'en the children 

Hide their eyes in the skirts of the mothers. 

Some gnash ; some send up loud cheers 

And show their wolf-teeth ; while others 

Hiss out a curse on the priests ; 

Some scream with a demon's delight 

At his pangs as the sufferer writhes. 

But the count ! Yes, he saw this base murder 
As he stood in the shade of the church. 
And his heart was a wellspring of pity. 

169 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



'T was a sight generations had seen. 

When one or another fierce faction. 

Those that loved or that spat on the Pope, 

Exchanged the red sword for the crozier 

And slew whom thej could not convert ; 

Had been done at Amboise, in the Terror, 

When the cowl and naught else made the saint, 

And that chateau was turned to a shambles 

And the river ran red with the blood 

Of saints who were slain for denying 

That bread was the body of Christ. 

'T is the son cuts the throat of his mother, 

'T is the mother feeds death to her child ; 

E'en the vail of the holy of holies 

Is rent by the hands it has blessed ! 

As these fagots were fading to embers 

He thought of the hecatombs slain 

For a waif of scholastical fiction, 

And swore by the blood of the slain 

To lay siege to the heart of his sovereign 

For a charter to worship his God 

Or die like a lamb in the struggle 

At the beck of the cardinal's nod. 

" He has strewn the green fields with his victims 

May they rise like those giants of old, 

When the teeth of the dragon were scattered. 

And their blood be the seed of the free ! " 



170 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



III. Fidelity 

The Louvre was a mere-stone of Paris 
When the seventeenth century dawned ; 
Outside of its plaisance and terrace 
There were forest and arable field ; 
The slopes of the Seine were then meadows 
Where a farm-house was here and there seen 
In some bend of its lazy arm nestling, 
And cattle and sheep on the wold. 

Where the rooks had made nests in some ruins 

That robbers had turned into dens 

The cardinal built a huge palace, — 

We call it the Palais Royal, — 

And its courts and its gardens and grandeur 

Eclipsed many royal demesnes. 

The Queen was a daughter of Csesar ; 
But the heart of her lord never held. 
Though her graces of mind and of person 
Were diamonds fit for a crown. 
The queen-mother, the cardinal, too, 
Had poisoned the fountain of love, 
To hold in the leash of ambition 
The lions of state and of war. 
The cardinal wielded the scepter, 
Wore the skin of the lion or fox 
As suited his purpose ; but always 
His hand was of iron whatever the glove. 

171 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



The King was no son of his father 
In that tiger-like grip of the will ; 
For his was the way of the maiden 
To be led by the hand that she loves. 
Isolation, the curse of high station, 
Is the handmaid the Fates give the great. 
Mt. Blanc stands alone in its grandeur ; 
'T is the wonder of millions of eyes, 
With no friendship except with the eagle, 
No fellowship save with the spheres 1 
So the king had no love in his portion, 
No love to give life to his toil, 
No friendship to season his duties ; 
If he scattered the seeds of affection 
They were nipped by some famine or frost. 
What plant ever grows without nurture ? 
Will affection not die if 't is starved ? 

The King called the count to his councils ; 

For he knew he was true to the pole. 

And prized both his youth and his purpose. 

His heart and his grace and his face. 

His the age when quick sympathies kindle, 

No icicles form round the heart, 

When the blood runs like rills down the mountains 

And hope is the sun of the morning, 

The sun of high-noon and all day. 

The King loved the sybarite's pleasures, 
And often the Seine saw their faces 

172 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



As they tempted the trout from her pools ; 
And often the glades heard the chorus 
• Of their hounds as they baited the boar ; 
And the forest the ring of their laughter 
When they brought some big stag to the spit, 
And a bevy of merry companions 
Pledged the health of the arrow had slain. 
At times they were off on their hunters 
To Touraine, the true home of the chase, 
To see if the boar bit the spear-head 
Or their falcons would strike as of yore. 
'Tis here is the grave of Da Vinci, 
That star in eternity's blue ! 
And always their hearts welled with honor 
To that master of many great arts. 
And always, whenever they passed it 
Their souls were a wellspring of love. 
'T is a proof that the soul is divine ! 

Who loves not Touraine in the autumn ? 
Then its floors are mosaics of leaves ; 
Then argosies people its rivers ; 
Its meadows are pillared with sheaves ; 
Its chateaux are spangled with crimson ; 
Then ghosts on the castle-tops dance 
Of this garden, this Eden of France, 
This land of sweet song and romance. 

These were times when the courts of the palace 
Were ablaze with the daughters of France, 

173 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



With jewels and pearls and tiaras, 

And with beauty eclipsing their beams, 

With crowns and with coronets blazing 

As blazes a gem in the sun ; 

With Knights of the Fleece and St. Michael 

And heirs of the great Field of Gold, 

Montmorencies, Colignys, Navarres, 

And the stars on the breast of Cond^ ; 

But none with so brilliant a luster 

As shone in the face of the Queen, 

And none with so shining a presence 

As the grace that illumined the count. 

Nor were days nothing else except pageants ; 

There were duties that burdened them, too. 

There were times when the needs of the nation 

Were weighed in the councils of state : 

Should the falchion be drawn with the Spaniard ? 

The Huguenots hunted like sheep 

From the caves they had crawled to for shelter ? 

Should the peasant be harrowed with tax ? 

The baron be brought to his haunches 

That the fleur-de-lis flourish alone ? 

It was then that the count watched the compass 
If the cardinal stood at the helm, 
His eye ever fixed on the pole-star. 
His vow and God's shepherdless sheep. 

In the wake of his fortunes were courtiers, 
For butterflies follow the sun, 

174 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



And courtiers who basked iu his glory 
And held out their caps to be filled. 

But death, always near at high-noon, 

Had his hand at the cardinal's throat, 

Nor cared it how fiercely the prelate 

Pursued the chimera of fame. 

Pursued with no fear and no pity, 

As the miser will hunt after gold. 

Bent down with the weight of his burden 

His step had the pace of the snail. 

No sleep ! Nor no rest ! And that fever 

Was burning the soul out of life. 

Leaving naught but the light in the windows 

To tell us the spirit still burned. 

That light ! It was genius ! 'T will kindle 

A blaze that shall loom throughout France ! 

One night — 't was the end of the summer — ■ 

The Seine was a city of boats, 

The park was a forest of lanterns. 

The palace a maelstrom of lights. 

The terrace a whirlpool of courtiers, 

The air was a chorus of joy. 

For Paris had put on its plumage, 

And had come to behold the Queen's f6te; 

And the scene was a dream of rare beauty 

And the plaisance a realm of delight. 

Since the King had conceived of this pageant, 
Some friends, who were near to his heart, 

175 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Had been spinning the threads of their purpose 

And wea\dng these threads in a scheme 

To snare in its meshes their master 

And trip up the heels of his lord. 

The whole court of the prelate were weary, 

Not only these friends but the Queen, 

The King and his mother and brother. 

From the King they had wrung a half-promise 

That the head at the helm should be changed. 

Some hugged to their bosoms the shadow 

That some heretic, maddened with wrongs, 

Would snatch again Ravaillac's dagger 

And do to the Catholic cause 

What Ravaillac did to Navarre. 

Some waited on tip-toe the knell 

That should lock the old fox in a dungeon 

And give to their idol the key. 

At last the great tower tolled midnight. 

Three figures emerged from the gate, 

And, crossing the terrace, all entered 

The door of that famous old fane 

From whose throat had been thundered the tocsin, 

On that bloody Bartholomew's day. 

That opened the flood-gates of slaughter 

And deluged all Paris with blood. 

One light at the altar was burning : 

A symbol the soul never dies f 

The church was as still as a graveyard, 
For silence had folded her wings. 

176 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Now Gaston tells over his sorrows 

As a novice his rosary tells ; 

"This glutton is stuffed with his plunder ! 

He reels with the blood he has drunk : 

His robes ! they are crimson, not scarlet I 

He rivals the King in his state, 

And is lord of as large a domain ; 

His palace eclipses Mahal, 

That jewel on India's bosom 

Whose wonders so stagger the world/* 

With his hand on his heart spake the other ; 

He dwelt on the woes of the realm : 

" The peasant is staggered with burdens ; 

The barons are down on their knees ; 

The Juggernaut rolls on greased axles 

And grinds alike peasant and peer ; 

Our temple of Janus is open ; 

Ever war or the hell-hounds of war I 

Now 't is Spain ; and the rag of rebellion 

Is floating from dozens of towers ! 

The Puritans over the Channel 

Are breaking a lance with King Charles ; 

And these men have the neigh of the war-horse 

Who are trying so fiercely to bray. 

In that Saracen tale, you '11 remember, 

Whom Allah would kill he struck blind." 

Their lips, dry as dust, wait his answer. 
So the traveler waits at a spring 

177 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



And .pants for a draught of fresh water. 
This draught will be tinctured with gall, 
For the King was too timid to govern, 
As much as he hated the hemlock 
Had poisoned his cup for so long. 
O this favor of Kings ! 'T is as fleeting 
As the breezes that belly the sail, 
Now sending the ship with a whirlwind, 
Now letting it sleep in the swell 1 

It was dawn when they crossed to the palace, 
All its splendors had faded. The stars 
Were closing their eyes. There was nothing. 
Save a man in a cloak and a cowl 
To be seen near the shade of the portal 
At first. Then the vision had fled. 

IV. Martyrdom 

On the isle in that portion of Paris 
Where the feet of the Romans are seen ; 
Where the legions of Caesar were quartered. 
And Charlemagne once had his camp ; 
Near those passionless buttresses holding 
The great Notre Dame in their arms. 
Is the chapel of royal St. Louis, 
That gem of all fanes, St. Chapelle. 
In its bosom are garnered the relics 
Of that land of our holiest love 
And that grave of so many crusaders. 
That shrine of the sons of the Cross. 

178 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Its memories ! Eloquence ! Echoes ! 
Its heirlooms ! Its incense ! Its prayers ! 
They fire our souls with amazement ! 

It was clad in the mantle of night. 
A figure — the face was well hidden 
And another — the face was well veiled — 
Stepped out of the darkness and entered. 
And here by that lattice where kings 
Come to pray in their sepulchered eyre, 
That troth which was plighted in childhood 
Thought to reach its fruition to-night. 

Let us leave them alone at the altar, 
Let us cover their joy with a veil. 
That joy so long smothered by silence, 
That wave of suspense and delight 
That swept them along in its current! 
The joys and the woes of the lover. 
They are only for angels to see. 

Time flies upon ecstasy's pinions ; 
Then there knocks at the door of the mind 
The dread that some sad misadventure 
Has kept back their friend from the shrine. 
A chill like the breath of the Ice-king 
Froze the currents of blood in their veins ; 
Then they turned back their eyes to the darkness, 
And their footsteps returned whence they came. 

179 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



And again in the shade of a portal 
Could be seen a long cloak and a cowl. 
In a moment this specter has vanished. 

That moment sat Armand des Plessis 
In the cardinal's palace near by, 
The finger of death on his forehead. 
But the light in the windows still burned ! 
His genius still burned for the empire, 
Still clutched at the skirts of fair Fame, 
That jade that has jilted so many, — 
But she loves him too well to coquet. 

He knew as none else the king's heart : 

Knew each stop and each fret of the organ, 

And could play with a masterly skill ; 

But he knew, too, the quicksands were shifting 

He had trod with such velvety feet ; 

He knew that his sovereign was sighing 

For the gurgle of death in his throat. 

" Come it must. But I still hurl the lightning ! 
Shall a boy snatch this bolt from my hand ? 
Shall I give up the glories of power ? 
My palace ? My plumage ? My wealth ? 
Shall the pinions be plucked from the eagle ? 
Shall the lion be caged like the lamb ? 
Shall the church put on sackcloth and ashes ? 
Shall the Huguenots strut across France ? 
There is still one last shaft in my quiver ! 

180 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



This treaty has never reached Spain, 
And my messenger yet may o'ertake it 
And smear with the traitor's last blood 1 

" What ! Shall not a king break a promise ? 
Bah ! Gaston not trick his best friend ? 
No vassal can marry a princess 
Till his sovereign shall give his consent ! 
His word ? It was breath ! 'T is as fleeting 
As the whim of a weather-cock king ! 
Silly boy I Your sails were not fashioned 
To trip to these treacherous winds ; 
You know not the tricks of this compass ; 
Your madness shall cost you your curls ! " 

Of this tissue the Cardinal's musings, 

Till a knock on the door broke the thread, 

And a man, with a vision sardonic. 

In a cloak with the cowl falling back, 

Entered in, a great difi*erence showing. 

And their heads were soon boiling with schemes. 

Just over the Seine from the palace 
The old Conciergerie stands. 
'T is a prison. How closely our sorrows 
Oft tread on the heels of our joys ! 
'T is a palace of sighs ! Its dungeons 
Cemented with tears and with blood ! 
Thence the tumbrils have carted the children 
Of France till their axle-trees groaned. 
Its caverns have sobbed with the anguish 

181 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Of martyrs whose souls were like snow^ 

Have moaned with their sighs and their heart-aches. 

Their crimes ? That their blood-drops were blue I 

Here languished that Queen at whose murder 

The demons in Hell must have wept. 

If these cells had had tongues even Dante 

Would turn in his grave could he hear. 

At the time of this tale this old prison 

Held fast in its clutches two friends. 

The pleasures of youth and ambition, 

The dream of that glory to come, 

If the sun of fulfilment had risen 

And the hill-tops had glowed with its light ; 

If their hopes had but had benedictions, 

And that chorus of grateful acclaim 

Had come from the Huguenot people, — 

These, these were the dreams had been theirs ! 

As for one — no active conspiring. 
But honor had tethered his tongue 
When a word would have loosened his shackles, 
But have been a sharp sword to his friend. 
It was love that had made him a victim ! 
But the other ? In the rashness of youth 
And his hatred of wrong and injustice 
He had crossed that thin line that divides 
The men who have founded great nations 
From the traitors who die by the axe. 
But this no one knew except Gaston. 
Had he held to his word they were saved. 

182 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Dozens, yes, scores were outside 

Who were eager their rescue to try, 

And had fixed on the simplest of signals, — 

That the count let a handkerchief fall, 

As he stood at the block by the headsman ; 

They would rush like a whirlwind of fire ; 

Their falchions would leap from their scabbards 

And the axe would be robbed of its prey. 

This message was brought by the warder. 
How they pondered it over and o'er : 
They were young, life sweet, oh, so precious, 
And the cause that they loved in such need. 
And for one a bright vista seemed opening 
Could he only again see his king ; 
For he might once again win his favor 
Once again turn his eyes to the light ; 
He had hazarded life for his country, 
Life, life for that guerdon of love ! 

Yes, and Love and Ambition were pleading 
And begging another last chance. 
While Prudence and Care for the people 
And Conscience were counseling peace : — 
'^ Should we fail, then the block were for hundreds, 
For the list of our friends will be known. 
St. Bartholomew's day was a specter 
That should make Revolution turn pale ; 
Another, some Moses may come 
And lead them across this Dead Sea : 

183 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



" It is Christ who has told us, our Master, 
If thine enemy smite thee forbear, 
If he smite thee on one cheek, the other." 
These hopes and these fears and these reasons 
Were wrestling at the judgment's dread bar, 
And he weighed them each one in the balance 
And counted each drachm and each grain, 
And then he returned them this answer : 
" It is better the few than the many ; 
The chances of failure are great." 

Outside of the gates of the prison 

Two figures in black might be seen. 

They had begged, begged in vain for one favor, 

For one sad little word of farewell. 

One clasp of the hand, or one pressure 

Of heart against heart, or one look. 

They stood in the glare of the sunshine. 

They have stood there through all the long night 

" Soon, soon the great clock will toll twelve! 

Can a mother, a sweetheart and princess 

Not gain the poor boon of one kiss ? " 

The saddest of words is farewell, 
But the saddest of farewells is this. 
When the pitcher is brought to the fountain 
To be filled with the nectar of love 
But is struck by the sword of the angel 
And is broken and falls to the ground. 

184 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



The rattle of drums ! The shuffle 

Of feet ! The word of command ! 

That was all ! And he stood on the scaffold. 

Many hundreds were there. It was noon. 

But his thoughts were not there, but in dreamland, 

In that land where the valleys are voiceless 

And the mountains no echoes return, 

Where the river glides on with no ripples, 

The ferryman rows without noise, 

And the people who wait at the ferry 

Are silent and shadowless forms. 

He sees the dull sheen of the river, 

And he feels its cold tears on his cheek. 

And he sees the great sea that it enters. 

Eternity's fathomless sea. 

But he sees, too, the spirits of martyrs. 
And he sees the bright sheen of their wings. 
And he feels the warm clasp of their greeting. 
And the print of their kiss on his brow, 
And the sweetest and kindest of w^elcomes 
To the fields where they dwell, in Elysium. 

But now he beholds the grim headsman 
And the shuddering gleam of his axe ; 
Still the light of this beautiful vision 
And its glory illumine his face ! 

And he lays down his head on the altar. 
There was one gleaming flash through the air. 
Some say, and they stood by the scaffold, 

185 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



There was something, it seemed like a dove, 

That arose like a halo of glory 

And floated away like a cloud. 

They watched it soar higher and higher 

Until lost in the azureless sky. 

But a step, then our journey is ended. 
For the cardinal's spirit takes wing 
To meet at the throne of Jehovah 
The award for those honors and crimes. 
His labors are over. A kingdom 
Now stands on the backs he has bent. 
The barons are humbled. A system, 
For cycles supreme, gnaws the ground. 

That specter of death that was hounding 

His footsteps now stares in his face. 

A litter is made. He is carried 

On the shoulders of slaves to Orleans ; 

Thence borne on the breast of the river 

To that chateau he changed to a jail 

For the friend of his youth, the queen-mother, 

As a payment for favors received, 

When Ambition wished props for its ladder, 

And longed a king's castle to scale. 

Thence 't is borne to our narrative's birthplace ; 

To that chateau and bridge of Amboise ; 

And those great gouts of blood on its gateway 

No river can ever efface ; 

186 



PATRIOT OR TRAITOR 



Past the homes of a score of old barons 

And their scoffs and their curses and jeers ; 

Past the caves where the Huguenots cowered ; 

And on, ever on, through Touraine, 

That land of a myriad exiles 

Who have found a new home o'er the sea ; 

Past thousands who lined the long river 

In silence, or shouting their scorn ; 

Past the wrecks of Cinq-Mars, whose retainers 

Rained showers of jibes on the barge; 

And that tomb where Plantagenet slumbers ; 

And that shrine to the maid of Orleans ; 

And again on the backs of his vassals 

To his home. May God give him peace ! 

What Roman so triumphed before ? 

Here, here shall he sleep till that trumpet 
Shall summon the dead to arise 
And stand, both the just and the unjust, 
Before the Great Throne to be judged. 
Who can say, on that awful, dread day 
When our deeds are all sifted and weighed, 
Our motives, our triumphs, our failures, 
And those acts that the sun never saw. 
And when God, the All-Seeing, shall scan them. 
And Christ, our Redeemer, shall plead, — 
Who can say, but some soul who in sorrow 
Struggled on through the darkness and storm, 
With love and naught else for his lantern. 
Will receive with the first the great crown ? 

187 



29 1913 



